As a rule, only the poor are generous. Rich people can always find excellent reasons for not handing over twenty thousand francs to a relative.

If the human heart sometimes finds moments of pause as it ascends the slopes of affection, it rarely halts on the way down.

Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.

A rent in your clothes is a mishap, a stain on them is a vice.

A husband and wife who are in the habit of occupying separate rooms are either beings apart, or they have found happiness. Either they hate or they adore each other.

Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.

Sensuality is the death of the soul.