The national budget is not a safe-deposit box. It is a spray can.

Several sorts of memory exist in us; body and mind each possesses one peculiar to itself. Nostalgia, for instance, is a malady of the physical memory.

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

Lofty souls are always inclined to make a virtue of misfortune.

Cruelty and fear shake hands together.

If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man's life would only serve to make a chronological table-a fool's notion of history.

How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.