nothing is so horrifying as the possibility of existing simply because we do not know how to die.

O memory, thou bitter sweet,--both a joy and a scourge!

I do not want an echo of myself from my children. I do not want to hear from them merely the reverberation of my own voice.

A voyage without companionship, that is to say without conversation, is one of the saddest pleasures of life.

The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.

In women's destiny everything goes downhill except for thought, whose immortal nature it is to keep constantly rising.

New doctrines ever displease the old. They like to fancy that the world has been losing wisdom, instead of gaining it, since they were young.