Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.

The success of any man with any woman is apt to displease even his best friends.

[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.

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 religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.

Only the refined and delicate pleasures that spring from research and education can build up barriers between different ranks.