The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.

I am the vampire at my own veins.

Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves.

Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves. They do everything in their power not to have any. And therefore, the great man, in order to exist, must possess a force of attack which is greater than the force of resistance developed by millions of people.

To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.

When it meows, one scarcely hears it... It has not the need of words to speak the lengthiest phraseologies.

To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.