“Modesty is the conscience of the body.”
“Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.”
“You may imitate, but never counterfeit.”
“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”
“Finance, like time, devours its own children.”
“A mother who is really a mother is never free.”
“A woman must be a genius to create a good husband.”
“Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.”
“I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race.”
“Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.”
“If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye.”
“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”
“To promote laughter without joining in it greatly heightens the effect.”
“In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.”
“The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.”
“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”
“Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence.”
“All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.”
“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.”
“Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.”
“We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.”
“Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.”
“Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself.”
“Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.”
“Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.”
“To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.”
“When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even out virtues.”
“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.”
“If those who are the enemies of innocent amusements had the direction of the world, they would take away the spring, and youth, the former from the year, the latter from human life.”