Alphonse Karr

“Uncertainty is the worst of all evils until the moment when reality makes us regret uncertainty.”

“Love in marriage should be the accomplishment of a beautiful dream, and not, as it too often is, the end.”

“Many people think that virtue consists of severity towards others.”

“The more the change, the more it is the same thing.”

“Botany is the art of insulting flowers in Greek and Latin.”

“I gather from a lawyer that there was a rehearsal yesterday. We haven't a hope. I know the presiding judge too: I've had the misfortune to sleep with his wife. He was specially picked.”

“Friendship between two women is always a plot against another one.”

“We can invent only with memory.”

“One expresses well only the love he does not feel.”

“All people have three characters, that which they exhibit, that which they have, and that which they think they have.”

“Display is like shallow water, where you can see the muddy bottom.”

“Women's glances express what they dare not speak.”

“Almost every one flatters himself that he and his are exceptionable.”

“If men knew all that women think, they would be twenty times more audacious.”

“If women only knew the extent of their power!”

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by our friends the murderers.”

“Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one tongue. Draw your own moral.”

“Avoid all haste; calmness is an essential ingredient of politeness.”

“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.”

“Flowing water is at once a picture and a music, which causes to flow at the same time from my brain, like a limpid and murmuring rivulet, sweet thoughts, charming reveries, and melancholy remembrances.”

“I am thankful that thorns have roses.”

“If there is a fruit that can be eaten raw, it is beauty.”

“A woman who writes commits two sins; she increases the number of books, and decreases the number of women.”

“Every man has three characters - that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.”

“A widow is like a frigate of which the first captain has been shipwrecked.”

“Love is the most terrible, and also the most generous of the passions; it is the only one which includes in its dreams the happiness of someone else.”

“Happiness is composed of misfortunes avoided.”