It were no virtue to bear calamities if we did not feel them.

For the honest people, relations increase with the years. For the vicious, inconveniences increase. Inconstancy is the defect of vice; the influence of habit is one of the qualities of virtue.

It were no virtue to bear calamities if we did not feel them.

The old age of women is bearable only on condition that they do not take up any room, do not make any noise, do not demand any service; on condition that they render all the service that is expected of them, and actually have no existence except for the good of others.

Want of perseverance is the great fault of women in everything--morals, attention to health, friendship, and so on. It cannot be too often repeated that women never reach the end of anything through want of perseverance.

A woman must be truly refined to incite chivalry in the heart of a man.

The revolting details of childbirth had been hidden from me with such care that I was as surprised as I was horrified, and I cannot help thinking that the vows most women are made to take are very foolhardy. I doubt whether they would willingly go to the altar to swear that they will allow themselves to be broken on the wheel every nine months.