I never was able to believe in the existence of next year except as in a metaphysical notion.

When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.

Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time.

However old a conjugal union, it still garners some sweetness. Winter has some cloudless days, and under the snow a few flowers still bloom.

Why shouldn't man be as angry about not having always been alive as about having to stop being alive?

When women oppose themselves to the projects and ambition of men, they excite their lively resentment; if in their youth they meddle with political intrigues, their modesty must suffer.

No nation has the right to bring about a revolution, even though such a change may be most urgently needed, if the price is the blood of one single innocent individual.