Handsome widows, after a twelve-month, enjoy a latitude and longitude without limit.

Loyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.

What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?

Old maids, having never bent their temper or their lives to other lives and other tempers, as woman's destiny requires, have for the most part a mania for making everything about them bend to them.

There are as many mediocrities exalted through pity as masters decried through envy.

Once she has committed sin, there is nothing left for the Protestant woman, whereas the Catholic Church, hope of forgiveness makes a woman sublime.

This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.