Society proceeds like the ocean. After a disaster, it resume its wonted level and rhythms; its devouring interests efface all traces of damage.

Rich men are resolved to be astonished at nothing. When they see a masterpiece, they must needs at one glance recognize some flaw to dispense them from admiration, a vulgar emotion.

A lover teaches a wife all her husband has kept from her.

Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.

Glory and fame mean twelve thousand francs' worth of paid articles in the newspapers and five thousand crowns' worth of dinners.

Virtually all men of action incline to Fatality just as most thinkers incline to Providence.

Clothes are like a gloss that sets off everything; dresser were invented more to enhance physical advantages than to veil physical defects.