It is from cowardice and not from want of enlightenment that we do not read in our own hearts.

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

I love her beauty, but I fear her mind.

The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in the United States of America.

I no longer find such pleasure in that preeminently good society, of which I was once so fond. It seems to me that beneath a cloak of clever talk it proscribes all energy, all originality. If you are not a copy, people accuse you of being ill-mannered.

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

I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction," said Mathilde. "It is the only thing which cannot be bought.