The greatest joy a petty soul can taste is to dupe a great soul and catch it in a snare.

The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, forgotten because it was properly done.

A great love is a credit opened in favor of a power so consuming that the moment of bankruptcy must inevitably occur.

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

A Creole woman is like a child, she wants to possess everything immediately; like a child, she would set fire to a house in order to fry an egg. In her languor, she thinks of nothing; when passionately aroused, she thinks of any act possible or impossible.

Novelty is both delightful and deceptive.

To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.