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

Perhaps men who cannot love passionately are those who feel the effect of beauty most keenly; at any rate this is the strongest impression women can make on them.

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.

People happy in love have an air of intensity.

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

Jean Jacques Rousseauis nothing but a fool in my eyes when he takes it upon himself to criticise society; he did not understand it, and approached it with the heart of an upstart flunkey.... For all his preaching a Republic and the overthrow of monarchical titles, the upstart is mad with joy if a Duke alters the course of his after-dinner stroll to accompany one of his friends.

She had caprices of a marvellous unexpectedness, and how is any one to imitate a caprice?