The innocence of virgins is like milk which turns when exposed to a clap of thunder, to a tart smell, to a hot day, to the merest nothing.

Neither the passions not justice nor politics nor the great social forces ever consider the victims they strike.

The habits of every animal are, at least in the eyes of man, constantly similar in all ages. But the habits, the clothes, the words and the dwelling of a prince, a banker, an artist, a bourgeois, a priest and a pauper, are wholly dissimilar and change at the will of civilizations.

Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.

There are as many mediocrities exalted through pity as masters decried through envy.

The first thing necessary to win the heart of a woman is opportunity.

The Police and the Society of Jesus posses in common the virtue of never forsaking their enemies as friends.