To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.

When she lives at his palace, the maiden niece of a bishop can pass for a respectable woman because, if she has a love affair, she is obliged to hoodwink her uncle.

Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.

Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions; envy is only moved to malice.

Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling.

One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy.

There is something great and terrible about suicide.