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

What saves the virtue of many a woman is that protecting god, the impossible.

However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?

Forgetting is the great secret of strong and creative lives.

A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.

Despotism accomplishes great things illegally; liberty doesn't even go to the trouble of accomplishing small things legally.

Creole women take after Europe in their intelligence, after the Tropics in the illogical violence of their passions, and after the Indies in the apathetic indolence with which they commit or suffer good and evil.