It is with blows dealt by public contempt that a husband kills his wife in the nineteenth century; it is by shutting the doors ofall the drawing-rooms in her face.

To be loved at first sight, a man should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face.

Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness.

True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.

Nothing is so hideous as an obsolete fashion.

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.

A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times over for her lover, but will break with him for ever over a question of pride.