"Love works miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and strengthening the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favoring the passions, destroying reason, and, in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy."

"The virtuous action, done for virtue's sake alone, is truly laudable."

"There is no greater fool than he who thinks himself wise; no one wiser than he who suspects he is a fool."

"There is in us more of the appearance of sense and of virtue than of the reality."

"We are always more disposed to laugh at nonsense than at genuine wit; because the nonsense is more agreeable to us, being more comformable to our own natures: fools love folly, and wise men wisdom."

"He who knows his incapacity, knows something."

"The less one sees and knows men, the higher one esteems them; for experience teaches their real value."

"There are few husbands whom the wife can not win in the long run by patience and love, unless they are harder than the rocks which the soft water penetrates in time."

"Some there are who are much more ashamed of confessing a sin than of committing it."

"The woman who does not choose to love should cut the matter short at once, by holding out no hopes to her suitor."

"I never knew a mocker who was not mocked, ... a deceiver who was not deceived, or a proud man who was not humbled."

"Ilz font semblant de n'aymer poinct les raisins quand ilz sont si haults, qu'ilz ne les peuvent cueillir."

"Though jealousy be produced by love as ashes are by fire, yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother the flame."

"The more hidden the venom, the more dangerous it is."

"God always helps madmen, lovers, and drunkards."

"Mariage est un état de si longue durée, qu'il ne doit être commencé légèrement, ne sans l'opinion de nos meilleurs amis et parents."

"Man is wise ... when he recognises no greater enemy than himself."

"Un malheureux cherche l'autre."

"He who knows his own incapacity, knows something, after all."

"No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world."

"When one has one good day in the year, one is not wholly unfortunate."

"I have heard much of these languishing lovers, but I never yet saw one of them die for love."

"Blessed, unquestionably, is he who has it in his power to do evil, yet does it not."

"The principal themes of the [Heptaméron] are rape, seductions bordering on rape, incest and numerous infringements of the sex and marriage codes of aristocratic Europe."

"To me it seems much better to love a woman as a woman, than to make her one's idol, as many do. For my part, I am convinced that it is better to use than to abuse."

"The first modern woman."

"It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else."

"Xanthippe.—Socrates found the sort of wife that he needed — but even he would not have sought her had he known her well enough: the heroism of even this free spirit would not have gone that far. Xanthippe actually drove him more and more into his characteristic profession by making his house and home inhospitable and unhomely for him: she taught him to live in the streets and everywhere that one could chat and be idle and thus shaped him into the greatest Athenian street dialectician : who finally had to compare himself to an obtrusive gadfly that some god had placed upon the neck of that beautiful horse, Athens, in order to keep it from finding any peace."

"I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all. I would like Jesus to be present. I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us. I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts. I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me. I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity."

"I have been reading Madame Roland's memoirs and have come to the conclusion that she was a very over-rated woman; snobbish, vain, sentimental, envious — rather a German type. Her last days before her execution were spent in chronicling petty social snubs or triumphs of many years back. She was a democrat chiefly from envy of the noblesse."

"O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!"

"My mother, who disliked me from the bottom of her heart, deliberately did everything, it seemed, that would strengthen and intensify my unbounded passion for freedom and a military life. She wouldn't let me walk in the garden. She wouldn't let me be away from her for even half an hour: I had to sit in her bedroom and make lace. She herself taught me to sew, to knit, and seeing that I had neither the desire nor the ability for this sort of work, that in my hands everything tore or broke, she became angry, lost control of herself, and beat me very painfully on the hands."

"Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns, And as the portal opens to receive me, A voice in hollow murmurs through the courts Tells of a nameless deed."

"But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale, And in the distant ray what glimmering sail Bends to the storm?—Now sinks the note of fear! Ah? wretched mariners!—no more shall day Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way!"

"One thing that happens with gothic novels is the idea of the evil Other. That’s quite clear if you read Walpole or Radcliffe. It’s often an evil Italian or an evil Spaniard. Catholicism is mixed with that. It’s like these exotic evil Catholic people that are coming to pervert us."

"Individual freedom and individual equality cannot co-exist. I dare say no one since Thomas Jefferson has really believed it."

"Many of us do not believe in capital punishment, because thus society takes from a man what society cannot give."

"I nearly always find, when I ask a vegetarian if he is a socialist, or a socialist if he is a vegetarian, that the answer is in the affirmative."

"The great mistake of the reformers is to believe that life begins and ends with health, and that happiness begins and ends with a full stomach and the power to enjoy physical pleasures, even of the finer kind."

"The aristocracy most widely developed in America is that of wealth."

"To win, beloved Caroline from thee, One thought, in years when we shall sever'd be-- --Sever'd, perchance, by those deep waves, which pour Their billowy murmurs round our native shore,-- For this, I wander'd round the Bow'rs of Song, A weary, and rejected suppliant long, And of the Muses crav'd in humblest tone From their rich wreaths, one simple bud alone: They did but fling their wildest weeds at me, And thus I twin'd them into verse for thee!"

"In Beauty's dwelling all things fair, And rich, to win her sweet smiles strove; But still young Beauty's only care Was, to watch o'er the lamp of Love."