Women only give to friendship what they borrow from love.
Love as it exists in society is nothing more than the exchange of two fancies and the contact of two epidermes.
Duclos was speaking one day of the paradise that everyone imagines for himself in his own way. “Here are the ingredients for yours, Duclos,” said Madame de Rochefort; “Wine, bread, and cheese, and the first woman who might come on the scene.”
Apparently love does not seek real perfections—one might say it fears them. It only loves those which it creates or supposes, and so resembles those monarchs who only recognise the great things they themselves have achieved.
A man in love who pities the reasonable man seems to me like one who reads fairy tales and jeers at those who read history.