I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity.

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?

A man is a poor creature compared to a woman.

Despotism accomplishes great things illegally; liberty doesn't even go to the trouble of accomplishing small things legally.

Man judges of nature in relation to itself; the angelic spirit judges of it in relation to heaven. In short, to the spirits everything speaks.

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.

In France we can cauterize wounds but we do not yet know any remedy for the injuries inflicted by a bon mot.