Girls are apt to imagine noble and enchanting and totally imaginary figures in their own minds; they have fanciful extravagant ideas about men, and sentiment, and life; and then they innocently endow somebody or other with all the perfections for their daydreams, and put their trust in him.

Squeeze marriage as much as you like, you will never extract anything from it but fun for bachelors and boredom for husbands.

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

Men are so made that they can resist sound argument, and yet yield to a glance.

Genius is answerable only to itself; it is the sole judge of the means, since it alone knows the end; thus genius must consider itself as above the law, for it is the task of genius to remake the law; moreover the man who frees himself from his time and place may take everything, hazard everything, for everything is his by right.

For certain people, misfortune is a beacon that lights up the dark and baser sides of social life.

A knowledge of mankind and of things that surround us gives us that second education which proves far move valuable than our first because it alone turns out a truly accomplished man.