It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out. - Michel de Montaigne

The most beautiful lives, to my mind,are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle, and without eccentricity.

Men have seemed miraculous to the world, in whom their wives and valets have never seen anything even worth noticing. Few men have been admired by their own households.

I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood.... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world.