Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.

In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that hides their faces.

A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self indulgence.

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.

Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.

What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.