Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters.

In all lands, sailors form a race apart. They profess a congenital contempt for landlubbers. As for the tradesman, he understands nothing of sailors nor cares a fig about them. He is content to rob them if he can.

Emulation is not rivalry. Emulation is the child of ambition; rivalry is the unlovable daughter of envy.

Virtue is always too much of a piece and too ignorant of those shades of feeling and of temperament that enable us to squint when we are placed in a false position.

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

Let nothing dupe you! Such is the horrible maxim that acts as a solvent upon every noble feeling man experiences.

The victory always has a lot of parents but the defeat is always an orphan.