A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader's soul.

The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse - as a luxury befitting a young man.

This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.

At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

Great ladies are no more spiteful than the average rich woman; but one acquires in their society a greater susceptibility, and feels more profoundly andmore irremediably, their unpleasant remarks.

There is no such thing as "natural law": this expression is nothing but old nonsense... Prior to laws, what is natural is only the strength of the lion, or the need of the creature suffering from hunger or cold, in short, need.

All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.