When death gives us a long lease of life, it takes as hostages all those whom we have loved.

One can impose silence on sentiment, but one can not give it limits.

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.

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

Reason ought not, like vanity, to adorn herself with ancient parchments, and the display of a genealogical tree; more dignified in her proceedings, and proud of her immortal nature, she ought to derive everything from herself.

Recognized probity is the surest of all oaths.

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