“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”

“Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.”

“The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”