There are women vain of advantages not connected with their persons, such as birth, rank, and fortune; it is difficult to feel less the dignity of the sex. The origin of all women may be called celestial, for their power is the offspring of the gifts of Nature; by yielding to pride and ambition they soon destroy the magic of their charms.

The mind's pleasures are made to calm the tempests of the heart.

The study of history, it seems to me, leads to the conviction that all important events tend toward the same end - the civilization of mankind.

The egotism of woman is always for two.

Conversation as talent exists only in France. In other countries, conversation provides politeness, discussion, and friendship; in France, it is an art for which imagination and soul are certainly very welcome, but which can also provide its own secret remedies to compensate you for the absence of either or both, if you so desire.

What matters in a character is not whether one holds this or that opinion: what matters is how proudly one upholds it.

One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.