Truth to tell, the longer I live, the more I’m tempted to think that the only moderately worthwhile people in the world are you and I.

Never to my mind had she looked more beautiful. Inevitably so. A woman reaches the height of her beauty – and only at this time can she inspire that intoxication of the soul which is...

…it is not for the illusion of a moment to govern the choice of a lifetime.

Je sentis que le seul homme avec qui je pouvais parler sur cet objet, sans me compromettre, était mon Contesseur. Aussitôt je pris mon parti; je surmontai ma petite honte; et me vantant d’une faute...

Dès ce moment, le doux espoir a remplacé la cruelle inquiétude. J’aurai cette femme, je l’enlèverai au mari qui la profane, j’oserai la ravir au Dieu même qu’elle adore.

Don’t you remember that love, like medicine, is only the art of encouraging nature?

One must not permit oneself excesses, except with persons whom one wishes soon to leave.

When one woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal.

It was there, in particular, that I confirmed the truth that love, which we cry up as the source of our pleasures, is nothing more than an excuse for them.

How characteristic of your perverse heart that longs only for what happens to be out of reach.

Oh, keep your warnings and your fears for those giddy women who call themselves women of feeling, whose heated imaginations persuade them that nature has placed their senses in their heads; who, having never thought...

Humanity is not perfect in any fashion; no more in the case of evil than in that of good. The criminal has his virtues, just as the honest man has his weaknesses.

L’homme jouit du bonheur qu’il ressent, et la femme de celui qu’elle procure. Cette différence, si essentielle et si peu remarquée, influe pourtant, d’une manière bien sensible, sur la totalité de leur conduite respective. Le...

He’d call me false and faithless and I’ve always had a weakness for those two words; next to cruel, they’re the nicest words for a woman to hear, and not so hard to earn.

La honte que cause l’amour est comme sa douleur : on ne l’éprouve qu’une fois. On peut encore la feindre après ; mais on ne la sent plus. Cependant le plaisir reste, et c’est bien...

It has become necessary for me to have this woman, so as to save myself from the ridicule of being in love with her: for to what lengths will a man not be driven by...

I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose.

Now, I’m not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise...

Moreover it is easier, in the informality of conversation, to achieve that excitement and incoherence which is the true eloquence of love.

I willingly allow that money does not guarantee happiness; but it must also be allowed that it makes happiness a great deal easier to achieve.

Will you, then, never grow weary of being unjust?

You may conquer her love of God: you will never overcome her fear of the devil.