Society ... is nothing more than the war of a thousand petty opposed interests, an eternal strife of all the vanities, which, turn in turn wounded and humiliated one by the other, intercross, come into collision, and on the morrow expiate the triumph of the eve in the bitterness of defeat. To live alone, to remain unjostled in this miserable struggle, where for a moment one draws the eyes of the spectators, to be crushed a moment later -- this is what is called being a nonentity, having no existence. Poor humanity!

The poor are the blacks of Europe.

The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.

Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more.

Every woman in choosing a lover takes more account of the way in which other women regard the man than of her own.

All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.

It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyse before we can live happily in this world.