The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.

Heaven should be kind to stupid people, for no one else can be consistently.

The more one judges, the less one loves.

Cruelty and fear shake hands together.

All human power is a compound of time and patience.

It is easier for a woman to be a good wife than a good mother. A widow has two duties with contrary obligations: she is a mother and she must exercise paternal authority. Few woman are strong enough to understand and to play this role.

A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot of land, blind in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.