Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.

In the fine arts, as in many other things, we know well only what we have not learned.

Society is composed of two great classes, those that have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.

An author is often obscure to the reader because they proceed from the thought to expression than like the reader from the expression to the thought.

A person of intellect without energy added to it, is a failure.

Woman's weakness, not man's merit, oftenest gains the suitor's victory.

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!