It seemed to Julian that there was far too much hair in his wig. - Stendhal

A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.

I no longer find such pleasure in that preeminently good society, of which I was once so fond. It seems to me that beneath a cloak of clever talk it proscribes all energy, all originality. If you are not a copy, people accuse you of being ill-mannered. And besides, good society usurps its privileges. It had in the past the privilege of judging what was proper, but now that it supposes itself to be attacked, it condemns not what is irredemably coarse and disagreeable, but what it thinks harmful to its interest.

This man, whom great monarchies would have envied the prince of Parma, was known to have only one passion: of holding intimate conversations with great personages and currying favour by his buffoonery.