Men don't deceive their wives unless they love them. When they love them most, they deceive them. It's a form of fidelity, their deceit.

Faithful women are all alike, they think only of their fidelity, never of their husbands.

The older we women grow, the more clearly we see what men really are: hypocrites, boasters, he-goats. The older men grow, the more they doll us up with every perfection.

When a grown man reaches forty, we change him for an old one. He has completely disappeared. There's only the most superficial resemblance between the two of them. Nothing is handed on from one to the other.

Men should only believe half of what women say. But which half?

The brave men die in war. It takes great luck or judgment not to be killed. Once, at least, the head has to bow and the knee has to bend to danger. The soldiers who march back under the triumphal arches are death's deserters.