There are no little events with the heart. It magnifies everything; it places in the same scales the fall of an empire of fourteen years and the dropping of a woman's glove, and almost always the glove weighs more than the empire.

Marriage must fight constantly against a monster which devours everything: routine.

Misfortune, no less than happiness, inspires us to dream.

Many of us marvel at the icy insensitivity with which women snuff out their armours. But if they did not blot out the past in this manner, life for them would lose all dignity and they could never resist the fatal familiarities to which they once submitted.

It's catastrophies which turn wise and strong people into philosophers.

Reading brings us unknown friends

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