A well-born man is fortunate, but so is the man about whom people no longer ask, 'is he well-born?'

Both as to high and low indifferently, men are prepossessed, charmed, fascinated by success; successful crimes are praised very much like virtue itself, and good fortune is not far from occupying the place of the whole cycle of virtues. It must be an atrocious act, a base and hateful deed, which success would not be able to justify.

We are more sociable, and get on better with people by the heart than the intellect.

Envy and hatred go together. Mutually strengthened by the fact pursue the same object.

Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.

Every hour in itself, as it respects us in particular, is the only one we can call our own.

This great misfortune, to be incapable of solitude.