“Passion very often makes the wisest men fools, and very often too inspires the greatest fools with wit
“Love is the most terrible, and also the most generous of the passions; it is the only one which includes in its dreams the happiness of someone else.
“You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.
“There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride
“Love is an ideal thing, marriage is a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished