Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true. If we all said people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible. All human power is a compound of time and patience. It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time. Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity. Behind every great fortune there is a crime. We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are. There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power. There are no little events with the heart. It magnifies everything; it places in the same scales the fall of an empire of fourteen years and the dropping of a woman's glove, and almost always the glove weighs more than the empire. The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one. | 
