One must choose in life between boredom and suffering.
Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society.
[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.
Venice astonishes more than it pleases at first sight.
Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's.
Divine Wisdom, intending to detain us some time on earth, has done well to cover with a veil the prospect of the life to come; for if our sight could clearly distinguish the opposite bank, who would remain on this tempestuous coast of time?