Fame nowadays is little else but notoriety.

There is no knife that cuts so sharply and with such poisoned blade as treachery.

I have known men who have been sold and bought a hundred times, who have only got very fat and very comfortable in the process of exchange.

For Pastrasche was their alpha and omega; their treasury and granary; their store of gold and wand of wealth; their bread-winner and minister; their only friend and comforter. ... Pastrasche was their dog.

Woman already controls by not seeming to do so. Talk no more of her rights.

Dissimulation is the only thing that makes society possible; without its amenities the world would be a bear-garden.

The bread of bitterness is the food on which men grow to their fullest stature; the waters of bitterness are the debatable ford through which they reach the shores of wisdom; the ashes boldly grasped and eaten without faltering are the price that must be paid for the golden fruit of knowledge.