You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.

Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns, incessantly, though he may pass through and seem to inhabit a world quite foreign to it.

The heart feels, the head compares.

Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them.

Alexander created cities everywhere he passed: I have left dreams everywhere I have trailed my life.

Let us not disdain glory too much; nothing is finer, except virtue. The height of happiness would be to unite both in this life.

Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.