History is a novel for which the people is the author.

The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.

What is a great life but a youthful intention carried out in maturity?

From 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.

Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?

No writer, no matter how gifted, immortalizes himself unless he has crystallized into expressive and original phrase the eternal sentiments and yearnings of the human heart.

An army is a nation within a nation, it is one of the vices of courage.