Next to the wound, what women make best is the bandage.

Next to the wound, what women make best is the bandage.

Passions are less mischievous than boredom, for passions tend to diminish and boredom increase.

The crimes of extreme civilization are certainly more atrocious than those of extreme barbarism.

Yet, whether to the glory or to the shame of human nature, in what we call pleasure (with an excess of scorn, perhaps) there are abysses as deep as those of love.

We priests are the surgeons of souls, and it is our duty to deliver them of shameful secrets they would fain conceal, with hands careful to neither wound no pollute.

For in Paris, whenever God puts a pretty woman there (the streets), the Devil, in reply, immediately puts a fool to keep her.