I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.

It is the nobility of their style which will make our writers of 1840 unreadable forty years from now.

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.

Our true passions are selfish.

I see but one rule: to be clear.

The first virtue of a young man today - that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers - is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains.

To describe happiness is to diminish it.