The English are, I think the most obtuse and barbarous people in the world
A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.
A forty-year-old woman is only something to men who have loved her in her youth.
It is better to have a prosaic husband and to take a romantic lover.
I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.
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.