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.

Remorse is impotent; it will repeat its faults. Repentance only is a true force; it puts an end to everything.

Journalists grow accustomed to seeing evil and they let it pass; they proceed to approve it, and they end by committing it themselves.

France is a country that loves to change their government if it is always the same.

Let nothing dupe you! Such is the horrible maxim that acts as a solvent upon every noble feeling man experiences.

However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?

Men die in despair, while spirits die in ecstasy.