Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.

To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.

To our shame a woman is never so much attached to us as when we suffer

[Raphael’s] great superiority is due to the instinctive sense which, in him, seems to desire to shatter form. Form is, in his figures, what it is in ourselves, an interpreter for the communication of ideas...

Ha a nők elmésnek, tehetségesnek találják, a férfiak el fogják hinni, hogy az, hacsak maga ki nem ábrándítja őket. Akkor aztán mindent akarhat, mindenütt megvetheti a lábát. Akkor majd megtudja, hogy a világ nem egyéb,...

A mother who is really a mother is never free.

A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists.

The country is provincial; it becomes ridiculous when it tries to ape Paris.

They must have the defects of their qualities.

Was she acting entirely consciously? No: women are always sincere, even in the midst of their most shocking duplicities, because it is always some natural emotion which dominates them. Perhaps, having given this young man...

Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.

One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul.

It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.

Chance, my dear, is the sovereign deity in child-bearing.

Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling.

Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another’s happiness than in your own.

He looked like some plant bleached by darkness.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow.

A woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea.

However,” he continued, “this canvas is preferable to the paintings of that varlet Rubens, with his mountains of Flemish flesh sprinkled with vermilion, his waves of red hair and his medley of colors.

Ön, ha felsőbbrendű ember, menjen egyenest emelt fővel előre. De meg kell majd küzdenie az irigységgel, a rágalommal, a középszerűséggel, az egész világgal.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.

Those who spend too fast never grow rich.

You may imitate, but never counterfeit.

Though the human heart may have to pause for rest when climbing the heights of affection it rarely stops on the slippery slope of hatred.

Of necessity she went further in aversion than she had gone in love, for her hatred was not in proportion to her love but to her disappointed hopes.

First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint the second time.

A man is a poor creature compared to a woman.

Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

A man like you is a god, not just a machine covered with skin, but a theater where fine feelings sprout and grow-and feelings are all that matters, as far as I’m concerned. Is a...

And he, like many jaded people, had few pleasures left in life save good food and drink.

Happy?” asked Aquilina, with dreadful look, and a smile full of pity and terror. “Ah, you do not know what it is to be condemned to a life of pleasure.

Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.

Unintelligent persons are like weeds that thrive in good ground; they love to be amused in proportion to the degree in which they weary themselves.

For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.

Wit needs leisure, and certain inequalities of position

You have wavered uncertainly between two systems, between drawing and coloring, between the painstaking phlegm, the stiff precision, of the old German masters, and the dazzling ardor, the happy fertility, of the Italian painters.

Aki azzal dicsekszik, hogy sohasem változtatja meg a véleményét, az úgy tesz, mintha arra vállalkozna, hogy mindig nyílegyenes vonalban fog haladni. Együgyű az ilyen, hisz a csalhatatlanságban. Márpedig nincsenek elvek, csak események vannak; nincsenek törvények,...

The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute.

Love or hatred must constantly increase between two persons who are always together; every moment fresh reasons are found for loving or hating better.

It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.

The errors of women spring, almost always, from their faith in the good, or their confidence in the true

The viscountess had raised the forefinger of her right hand and made a pretty gesture toward a stool at her feet. There was such intense tyrannical passion in the gesture that the marquis relinquished the...

Il existe je ne sais quoi de grand et d’épouvantable dans le suicide. Les chutes d’une multitude de gens sont sans danger, comme celles des enfants qui tombent de trop bas pour se blesser; mais...

There is something great and terrible about suicide.

The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.

Notre conscience est un juge infaillible, quand nous ne l’avons pas encore assassinée.