No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.

The greatest joy a petty soul can taste is to dupe a great soul and catch it in a snare.

Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

To have one's mother-in-law in the country when one lives in Paris, and vice versa, is one of those strokes of luck that one encounters only too rarely.

We must certainly acknowledge that solitude is a fine thing; but it is a pleasure to have some one who can answer, and to whom we can say, from time to time, that solitude is a fine thing.

A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity.

If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one ... he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent.