It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

The famous physician Dumoulin said when dying, 'I leave two great physicians behind me, simple food and pure water.'

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble.

The only reward to be expected from literature is contempt if one fails and hatred if one succeeds.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.