Love, supreme power of the heart, mysterious enthusiasm that encloses in itself all poetry, all heroism, all religion!
We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love.
A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.
It is difficult to grow old gracefully.
[On Napoleon:] One has the impression of an imperious wind blowing about one's ears when one is near that man.
[Moralistic] novels are at the same disadvantage as teachers: children never believe them, because they make everything that happens relate to the lesson at hand.