A rent in your clothes is a mishap, a stain on them is a vice.

Man's condition is horrible because, no matter what form his happiness may take, it arises from some species of ignorance.

The secret of the nobility and beauty of great ladies lies in the art with which they can shed their veils. In such situations, they become like ancient statues. If they kept the merest scarf on, they would be lewd. Your bourgeois woman will always try to cover her nakedness.

Women see everything or nothing according to the inclination of their hearts. Love is their sole light.

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

It is very difficult to pass from pleasure to work. Accordingly more poems have been swallowed up by sorrow than ever happiness caused to blaze forth in unparalleled radiance.

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