Noble passions are like vices: the more they are satisfied, the greater they grow, Mothers and gamblers are insatiable.

Priests, magistrates and ladies never quite take off their gowns.

Life cannot go on without much forgetting.

Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists.

Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true.

The sanctity of womanhood is incompatible with social liberty and social claims; and for a woman emancipation means corruption.