Glory and fame mean twelve thousand francs' worth of paid articles in the newspapers and five thousand crowns' worth of dinners.

Constancy will always be the genius of love, the indication of that strength which constitutes the poet. A man should possess all women in his wife, like those squalid poetasters of the seventeenth century who made fair Irises and dazzling Chloes of their lowly Manons.

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

Many men nourish a pride which urges them to conceal their struggles and show themselves only as conquerors.

The sanctity of womanhood is incompatible with social liberty and social claims; and for a woman emancipation means corruption.

Men are so made that they can resist sound argument, and yet yield to a glance.

We flew back home like swallows. 'Is it happiness that makes us so light?' Agathe asked.