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.

[To Bonaparte, when asked why she meddled in politics:] Sire, when women have their heads cut off, it is but just they should know the reason.

Men have made of fortune an all-powerful goddess, in order that she may be made responsible for all their blunder's.

Never, never have I been loved as I love others!

It seems to me that we become more dear one to the other, in together admiring works of art, which speak to the soul by their true grandeur.

Happy the land where the writers are sad, the merchants satisfied, the rich melancholic, and the populace content.

It is obvious that the most despotic forms of social organization would be suitable for inert men who are satisfied with the situation fate has placed them in, and that the most abstract form of democratic theory would be practicable among sages guided only by their reason. The only problem is to what degree it is possible to excite or to contain the passions without endangering public happiness.