“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”

“He will show you how, during the springtime of life, illusions, innocent hopes, silver threads of gossamer, descend from heaven and return there without ever touching the earth.”

“Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.”

“True love is eternal, infinite and always like itself. It's always equal and pure. Without violent demonstrations: It is seen with white hairs and is always young at heart.”

“However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?”

“Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.”

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”