The study of social progress is to-day not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart.
Alfred de VignyPerform your long and heavy task with energy, treading the path to which Fate has been pleased to call you.
Alfred de VignyFrom this, without doubt, sprang the fable. Man created it thus, because it was not given him to see more than himself and nature, which surrounds him; but he created it true with a truth all its own.
Alfred de VignyHope is the greatest madness. What can we expect of a world that we enter with the assurance of seeing our fathers and mothers die? A world where, if two beings love each other and give their lives to each other, both can be sure that one will watch the other perish?
Alfred de Vigny