Nature knows nothing but solid bodies; your science deals only with combinations of surfaces. And so nature constantly gives the lie to all your laws; can you name one to which no fact makes an exception?
No hawk swooping down upon his prey, no stag improvising new detours by which to trick the huntsman, no dog scenting game from afar is comparable in speed to the celerity of a salesman when he gets wind a deal, to his skill in tripping up or forestalling a rival, and to the art with which he sniffs out and discovers a possible sale.
It is beyond a doubt that during the sixteenth century, and the years immediately preceding and following it, poisoning had been brought to a pitch of perfection which remains unknown to modern chemistry, but which is indisputably proved by history. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was at that time, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are lost.
At thirty years a woman asks her lover to give her back the esteem she has forfeited for his sake; she lives only for him, her thoughts are full of his future, he must have a great career, she bids him make it glorious; she can obey, entreat, command, humble herself, or rise in pride; times without number she brings comfort when a young girl can only make moan.
Narrow minds can develop as well through persecution as through benevolence; they can assure themselves of their power by tyrannizing cruelly or beneficially over others.
A woman's greatest charm consists in a constant appeal to a man's generosity by a gracious declaration of helplessness which fills him with pride and awakens the most magnificent feelings in his heart.
Intuition, like the rays of the sun, acts only in an inflexibly straight line; it can guess right only on condition of never diverting its gaze; the freaks of chance disturb it.