I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.

To describe women, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly.

I am more affected by the attractions of virtue than by the deformities of vice; I turn gently away from the wicked and I fly to meet the good. If there is in a literary work, in a character, in a picture, in a statue, a beautiful spot, that is where my eyes rest; I see only that, I remember only that, all the rest is well-nigh forgotten. What becomes of me when the whole work is beautiful!

How easy it is to tell tales!

First move me, astonish me, break my heart, let me tremble, weep, stare, be enraged-only then regale my eyes.

If your little savage were left to himself and be allowed to retain all his ignorance, he would in time join the infant's reasoning to the grown man's passion, he would strangle his father and sleep with his mother.

There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.