“As a rule, only the poor are generous. Rich people can always find excellent reasons for not handing over twenty thousand francs to a relative.”

The victory always has a lot of parents but the defeat is always an orphan.

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 our virtues.

Liberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism brings about liberty once again. Millions of human beings have perished without being able to make any of these systems triumph.

A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.

Forgetting is the great secret of strong and creative lives.

One hour of love has a whole life in it.

He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men.

There are two histories : official history, lying, and then secret history, where you find the real causes of events.

I can no longer think of anything but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me.

Love is not only a feeling, it is also an art. A simple word, a sensitive precaution, a mere nothing reveal to a woman the sublime artist who can touch her heart without withering it.

No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.

Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.

Talent is a flame, but genius is a fire.

Noble passions are like vices: the more they are satisfied, the greater they grow, Mothers and gamblers are insatiable.

Cruelty and fear shake hands together.

The first thing necessary to win the heart of a woman is opportunity.

You smile upon your friend to-day, To-day his ills are over; You hearken to the lover’s say, And happy is the lover. ‘Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never: I shall have lived a little while Before I die for ever.

The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.

If somebody’s going to represent our music live, I’d like to see it represented with excellence and spectacularly and with really great musicianship.

Men of perverse opinion do not know the excellence of what is in their hands, till someone dash it from them.

Many evil men are rich, and good men poor, but we shall not exchange with them our excellence for riches.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

Excellence isn’t achieved without inspiration and perspiration. You’ve got to have both.

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.