Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute of ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge.

The woman who is about to deceive her husband always carefully thinks out how she is going to act, but she is never logical.

Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!

I should like one of these days to be so well known, so popular, so celebrated, so famous, that it would permit me . . . to break wind in society, and society would think it a most natural thing.

I declare, on my soul and conscience, that the attainment of power, or of a great name in literature, seemed to me an easier victory than a success with some young, witty, and gracious lady of high degree.

The more illegal a profit, the more tenaciously a man clings to it.

Love based upon money and vanity forms the most stubborn of passions.