Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of the judgment.

I loved too sincerely, too completely, I venture to say, to be able to be happy easily.

Had I no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. So shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; I should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after death.

The empire of woman is an empire of softness, of address, of complacency. Her commands are caresses, her menaces are tears.

Her dignity consists in being unknown to the world; her glory is in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures in the happiness of her family.

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

He who pretends to look on death without fear lies. All men are afraid of dying, this is the great law of sentient beings, without which the entire human species would soon be destroyed.