“There are men who put the weight of a coffin into their deliberations as they bargain for Cashmere shawls for their wives, as they go up the staircase of a theatre, or think of going to the Bouffons, or of setting up a carriage; who are murderers in thought when dear ones, with the irresistable charm of innocence, hold up childish foreheads to be kissed with a ‘Good-night, father!’ Hourly they meet the gaze of eyes they would fain close forever, eyes that still open each morning to the light. . . God alone knows the number of those who are parricides in thought”

“She said she had learnt one thing from Balzac: that a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price.”

“What a man Balzac would have been if he had known how to write.”

“Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.”

“The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.”

“The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.”

“Wisdom is that apprehension of heavenly things to which the spirit rises through love.”

“It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion it is a joy of every moment. ”

“To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought.”

“The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute.”

“If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye.”