I preferred to sleep, which is an interim way of dying.

I took her hand, pulled it lightly to me, and kissed her on the forehead, with the delicacy of a zephyr and the gravity of Abraham.

Each century brought its share of shadow and light, apathy and combat, truth and error, and its courtship of systems, new ideas, new illusions.

A ridiculous old age is perhaps the saddest and ultimate surprise human nature may have in store.

She was not just inviting scandal, she was inviting it in partnership with ridicule.

Lascivious one, the voluptuousness of nothing awaits you.

I had no children, I did not transmit to any creature the legacy of our misery.

He wanted to explain philosophy to me; I asked him not to.

But this is what makes us lords of the earth, it is this power to restore the past, to touch the instability of our impressions and the vanity of our affections.

Ah! were you careful to tie me to the cliff of your frivolity, your indifference, or your agitation?