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.

A good book is an event in my life.

In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.

Prudery is a kind of avarice, the worst of all.

Every great action is extreme when it is undertaken. Only after it has been accomplished does it seem possible to those creatures of more common stuff.

The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.

Sometimes the impact of Mozart's music is so immediate that the vision in the mind remains blurred and incomplete, while the soul seems to be directly invaded, drenched in wave upon wave of melancholy.