Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!

Those who spend too fast never grow rich.

The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.

There is something great and terrible about suicide.

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

Women are tenacious, and all of them should be tenacious of respect; without esteem they cannot exist; esteem is the first demand that they make of love.

Many men are deeply moved by the mere semblance of suffering in a woman; they take the look of pain for a sign of constancy or of love.

Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?

The man whose action habitually bears the stamp of his mind is a genius, but the greatest genius is not always equal to himself, or he would cease to be human.

The habits of life form the soul, and the soul forms the countenance.

There are some women whose pregnancy would make some sly bachelor smile.

What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?

Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there is the same difference that lies between a careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady's window.

For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.

A husband who submits to his wife's yoke is justly held an object of ridicule. A woman's influence ought to be entirely concealed.

Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.

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

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.

Clouds symbolize the veils that shroud God.

Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.

Men die in despair, while spirits die in ecstasy.

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.

The life of a man who deliberately runs through his fortune often becomes a business speculation; his friends, his pleasures, patrons, and acquaintances are his capital.

Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!

Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.

Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.

A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity.

Love or hatred must constantly increase between two persons who are always together; every moment fresh reasons are found for loving or hating better.

Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow.

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

The grace of God is courtesy.

Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.

It is impossible to practice parliamentary politics without having patience, decency, politeness and courtesy.

I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.

I have always felt that if a man gives you a solid gold key to his door he is entitled to the courtesy of a visit.

When a language creates as it does a community within the present, it does so only by courtesy of a community between the present and the past.

There can be no defence like elaborate courtesy.

All doors open to courtesy.

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

Princes of courtesy, merciful, proud and strong.

It is better to have too much courtesy than too little, provided you are not equally courteous to all, for that would be injustice.

All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.

The courtesy which most becomes a victor was denied to Germany for a long time.

When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.

There can be no defense like elaborate courtesy.

I'd like to say from the beginning that the 12 years I've been coming here, I've met unfailing courtesy and cooperation, courtesy from your people and cooperation from the Ministry of Information.