Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will. ... there are no age limits for love.

I have a bad memory for facts.

To describe happiness is to diminish it.

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.

A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to love.

The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.