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

Tombs decked by the arts can scarcely represent death as a formidable enemy; we do not, indeed, like the ancients, carve sports and dances in the sarcophagus, but thought is diverted from the bier by works that tell of immortality, even from the altar of death.

... in the history of the human mind there has never been a useful thought or a profound truth that has not found its century and admirers.

Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's.

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.

Unhappy love freezes all our affections: our own souls grow inexplicable to us. More than we gained while we were happy we lose by the reverse.

[The Germans] so easily confuse obstinacy with energy, and rudeness with firmness.