The true comic muse is the one with tears running down under her laughing mask.

Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman's entire but decisive advantage. Through man's passions, nature has given man into woman's hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise.

If I can't enjoy the full and total happiness of love, then I want to drain its torments, its tortures to the dregs; then I want the woman I love to mistreat me, betray me, and the more cruelly the better. That too is a pleasure.

Never feel safe with the woman you love, for a woman's nature conceals more dangers than you think.

The struggle of the spirit against the senses is the gospel of modern man. I do not wish to have any part in it.

Alas, woman is faithful as long as she loves, but you demand that she be faithful without love and give herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel then, woman or man?

Every man--I know this--turns weak, pliant, ridiculous as soon as he's in love.