Madame de Rochefort was asked if she were anxious to know the future. “No,” she replied, “it is too like the past.”
The new friends whom we make after attaining a certain age and by whom we would fain replace those whom we have lost, are to our old friends what glass eyes, false teeth and wooden legs are to real eyes, natural teeth and legs of flesh and bone.
By learning the evil elements in nature we despise death, by learning those of society we despise life.
Society would be a charming affair if we were only interested in one another.
“In the world,” remarked some one to me, “you have three kinds of friends: the friends who love you, the friends who do not trouble their heads about you, and the friends who hate you.”