He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.

He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

What you have been obliged to discover by yourself leaves a path in your mind which you can use again when the need arises.

I am confident of my ability to demonstrate that one can sometimes believe in something and yet not believe in it. Nothing is less fathomable than the systems that motivate our actions.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Libraries can in general be too narrow or too wide for the soul.

Brevity: To say at once whatever is to be said.