When passion is not fed, it changes to need. At this juncture, marriage becomes a fixed idea in the mind of the bourgeois, being the only means whereby he can win a woman and appropriate her to his uses.

A woman questions the man who loves exactly as a judge questions a criminal. This being so, a flash of the eye, a mere word, an inflection of the voice or a moment's hesitation suffice to expose the fact, betrayal or crime he is attempting to conceal.

Does not any limit imposed upon one inspire a desire to go beyond it? Does not our keenest suffering arise when our free will is crossed?

If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible.

Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.

Women are as they are; they necessarily have the defects of their virtues.

The man who enters his wife's dressing room is either a philosopher or a fool.