A man wastes his time going to hear some of our eloquent modern preachers; they may change his opinions, but never his conduct.

Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.

Many men are deeply moved by the mere semblance of suffering in a woman; they take the look of pain for a sign of constancy or of love.

How natural it is to destroy what we cannot possess, to deny what we do not understand, and to insult what we envy!

For a sick man the world begins at his pillow and ends at the foot of his bed.

Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.

The fame of surgeons resembles the fame of actors, who live only during their lifetime and whose talent is no longer appreciable once they have disappeared.