Conventions are often more cruel than the law.
A man's own vanity is a swindler that never lacks for a dupe.
The wounds of self-love turn incurable when the oxide of self-love gets into them.
Imagination helps the realism of every detail, and only sees the beauties of the work.
Virginity, like all monstrosities, possesses special riches and its own absorbing grandeur. Among the chaste, life forces are economized and thus gain in resistance and durability.
Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!