Admiration bestowed upon any one but ourselves is always tedious.

A lover teaches a wife all her husband has kept from her.

A vocation is born to us all; happily most of us meet promptly our twin,--occupation.

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.

Virtually all men of action incline to Fatality just as most thinkers incline to Providence.

The monotony of provincial life attracts the attention of people to the kitchen. You do not dine as luxuriously in the provinces as in Paris, but you dine better, because the dishes serve you are the result of mediation and study.

Behind every fortune there is a crime.