It is fine for a woman to know a lot; but I don't want her to have this shocking desire to be learned for learnedness sake. When I ask a woman a question, I like her to pretend to ignore what she really knows.

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Outside of Paris, there is no hope for the cultured.

No one is safe from slander. The best way is to pay no attention to it, but live in innocence and let the world talk.

Esteem must be founded on some sort of preference. Bestow it on everybody and it ceases to have any meaning at all.

There's nothing people can't contrive to praise or condemn and find justification for doing so, according to their age and their inclinations.

It is a strange enterprise to make respectable people laugh.