In the first woman we love, we love everything. Growing older, we love the woman only.

Love is the reduction of the universe to the single being, and the expansion of a single being, even to God

Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?

Foppery, being the chronic condition of women, is not so much noticed as it is when it breaks out on the person of the male bird.

Charity is not one of the virtues practiced on the stock market. The heart of a bank is but one of many viscera.

Among even the happiest married couples there are always moments of regret.

There is neither vice nor virtue, there are only circumstances.