All through life a man has need of a counsellor and guide.

I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted...without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of an object, was always suppressed. ...The impossibility of attaining the real persons precipitated me into the land of chimeras; and seeing nothing that existed worthy of my exalted feelings, I fostered them in an ideal world which my creative imagination soon peopled with beings after my own heart.

The most absolute authority is that which penetrates into a man's innermost being and concerns itself no less with his will than with his actions.

Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls.

Women speak at an earlier age, more easily, and more agreeably than men; they are accused also of speaking more; this is as it should be, and I willingly change the reproach into a eulogy.

Accent is the soul of language; it gives to it both feeling and truth.

The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.