There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

Modesty is the conscience of the body.

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority over the other.

The more you judge, the less you love.

Woman has this in common with angels, that suffering beings belong especially to her.

Thanks to the toleration preached by the encyclopedists of the eighteenth century, the sorcerer is exempt from torture.