No man is a complete mystery except to himself.

You can't learn the truth about a man's intentions by asking him.

However, the danger in [socially unbalanced relationships] is that the subjection of the woman temporarily calms the man's jealousy but also renders it more demanding. He ends up making his mistress live like those prisoners on whom light is shone day and night in order for them to be better watched. And things always end in tragedy.

A man of letters, merely by reading a phrase, can estimate exactly the literary merit of its author.