Nothing about me surprises me.

Music is of two kinds: one petty, poor, second-rate, never varying, its base the hundred or so phrasings which all musicians understand, a babbling which is more or less pleasant, the life that most composers live.

Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise again from ruin.

The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.

Little minds find satisfaction for their feelings, good or bad, in little things.

Great minds always tend to see virtue in misfortune.

By dint of making sacrifices, a man grows interested in the person who exacts them. Great ladies, like courtesans, know this truth by instinct.