We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm.

It is children only who enjoy the present; their elders either live on the memory of the past or the hope of the future.

Narrow waists and narrow minds go together.

Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking.

When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws.

We need to be just before we are generous, as we need shirts before ruffles.

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!