Happiness is a wondrous commodity: the more you give, the more you have.
How much past there is in a life, however brief it be.
Men do not change; they unmask themselves.
If one hour's work is enough to govern France, four minutes is all that is needed for Italy. There is no nation more easily frightened; even its poetic imagination predisposes it to fear, and they look upon power as on an image that fills them with terror.
We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.
[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.