On the moral plane, true friends enjoy the same protection as the sense of smell confers upon dogs. They scent the sorrow of their friends, they divine its causes, and they clasp it to their minds and hearts.

Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.

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

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

There is neither vice nor virtue, there are only circumstances.

Love knows nothing of modesty.