What annoyances are more painful than those of which we cannot complain?More Astolf Custine [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, though everything is done with much silence, Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state.More Astolf Custine [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

Grace is always natural, though that does not prevent its being often used to hide a lie. The rude shocks and uncomfortably constraining influences of life disappear among graceful women and poetical men; they are the most deceptive beings in creation; distrust and doubt cannot stand before them; they create what they imagine; if they do not lie to others, they do to their own hearts; for illusion is their element, fiction their vocation, and pleasures in appearance their happiness. Beware of grace in woman, and poetry in man -- weapons the more dangerous because the least dreaded!More Astolf Custine [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

The love of their country is with them only a mode of flattering its master; as soon as they think that master can no longer hear, they speak of everything with a frankness which is the more startling because those who listen to it become responsible.More Astolf Custine [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

Nations have always good reasons for being what they are, and the best of all is that they cannot be otherwise.More Astolf Custine [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

The circumstances of human society are too complicated to be submitted to the rigor of mathematical calculation.More Astolf Custine [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

The love of their country is with them only a mode of flattering its master; as soon as they think that master can no longer hear, they speak of everything with a frankness which is the more startling because those who listen to it become responsible.More Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

The circumstances of human society are too complicated to be submitted to the rigor of mathematical calculation.More Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

What annoyances are more painful than those of which we cannot complain?More Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Nations have always good reasons for being what they are, and the best of all is that they cannot be otherwise.More Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Grace is always natural, though that does not prevent its being often used to hide a lie.More Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

In Russia, whatever be the appearance of things, violence and arbitrary rule is at the bottom of them all. Tyranny rendered calm by the influence of terror is the only kind of happiness which this government is able to afford its people.More Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

I do not believe I am exaggerating in affirming that the empire of Russia is a country whose inhabitants are the most miserable on earth, because they suffer at one and the same time the evils of barbarism and of civilization.More Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

In Russian administration, minuteness does not exclude disorder. Much trouble is taken to attain unimportant ends, and those employed believe they can never do enough to show their zeal. The result is...that having passed through one formality does not secure the stranger from another.More Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Grace is always natural, though that does not prevent its being often used to hide a lie. The rude shocks and uncomfortably constraining influences of life disappear among graceful women and poetical men; they are the most deceptive beings in creation; distrust and doubt cannot stand before them; they create what they imagine; if they do not lie to others, they do to their own hearts; for illusion is their element, fiction their vocation, and pleasures in appearance their happiness. Beware of grace in woman, and poetryMore Astolf Custine [03/29/2018 05:03:36]