An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

We must not always try to plumb the depths of the human heart; the truths it contains are among those that are best seen in half-light or in perspective.

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

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.

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.

Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them.

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