One must choose in life between boredom and suffering.

The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.

A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.

That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it.

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

To be totally understanding makes one very indulgent.

Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end.

Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's.

Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.

Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.

Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.

The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.

The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes.

Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened.

Men err from selfishness; women because they are weak.

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.

Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.

Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ, and the difference of things that are alike.

Speech happens to not be his language.

The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies God in us.

In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.

A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.

The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.

When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.