it is the nature of human beings, and especially of the mediocre ones, to wish to change everything. They desire it all the more because they know popularity will accrue rather to those who disturb than to those who maintain order.

Tribulation first makes one realize what one is.

I wasn’t raised, I was built.

I have come, Sire, to complain of one of your subjects who has been so audacious as to kick me in the belly.

one's enjoyment is doubled when one can share it with a friend - and where can one find a more affectionate, a more intimate friend than in one's own family?

I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.

Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?