“Succeed; that is the advice that falls, drop by drop, from the overhanging fruit of corruption.”

“A saint addicted to abnegation is a dangerous neighbor; he is very likely to infect you with an incurable poverty, a stiffening of the articulations necessary to advancement, and, in fact, more renunciation than you would like; and men flee from this contagious virtue. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur Bienvenu. We live in a sad society. Succeed--that is the advice which falls drop by drop from the overhanging corruption.”

“We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is the lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption.Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almost the same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menaechmus of talent, has one dupe,--history.”

“One drop of wine is enough to redden a whole glass of water.”

“Her soul trembled on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower.”

“It all seemed to him to have disappeared as if behind a curtain at a theater. There are such curtains that drop in life. God is moving on to the next act.”

“There are moments when a rope's end, a pole, the branch of the tree, is life itself, and it is a frightful thing to see a living being lose his hold upon it, and fall like a ripe fruit.”