Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

There is no man who desires as passionately as a Russian. If we could imprison a Russian desire beneath a fortress, that fortress would explode.

A child is an angel dependent on man

In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.

The great fault in women is to desire to be like men.

It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them.

To know how to wait. It is the great secret of success.