Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.

He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another's virtue.

Without vanity, without coquetry, without curiosity, in a word, without the fall, woman would not be woman. Much of her grace is in her frailty.

He saw before him two roads, both equally straight ; but he saw two; and that terrified him — him, who had never in his life known but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.

There are no trifles in the human story, no trifling leaves on the tree.

The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.

The world of sleep has an existence of its own.