A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.

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.

It is difficult to grow old gracefully.

We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love.

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.

That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it.

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.