“Old maids, having never bent their temper or their lives to other lives and other tempers, as woman’s destiny requires, have for the most part a mania for making everything about them bend to them.”

Love is perhaps no more than gratitude for pleasure.

A woman must be a genius to create a good husband.

A mother who is really a mother is never free.

The press is like a woman: sublime when it lies, it will not let go until it has forced you to believe it. The public, like a foolish husband, always succumbs.

It is quite right what they say: the three most beautiful sights in the world are a ship in full sail, a galloping horse, and a woman dancing.

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

Like hunger, physical love is a necessity. But man’s appetite for amour is never so regular or so sustained as his appetite for the delights of the table.

A naked woman is less dangerous than one who spreads her skirt skillfully to cover and exhibit everything at once.

All happiness depends on courage and work. I have had many periods of wretchedness, but with energy and above all with illusions, I pulled through them all.

Life is simply what out feelings do to us.

Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position of them, the timid keyboard, the fingering so changeful and capricious which befits it.

Man is no match for woman where mischief reigns.

What makes friendship indissolute and what doubles its charms is a feeling we find lacking in love: I mean certitude.

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

Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.

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

Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny.

Never let other people’s opinions of you determine your destiny.

You can’t be passive and reach your destiny.

I try to make sense of things. Which is why, I guess, I believe in destiny. There must be a reason that I am as I am. There must be.

We can’t control our destiny, but we can control who we become.

Don’t forget your history nor your destiny.

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.

Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.