Memoirs are the backstairs of history.

A house with a great wine stored below lives in our imagination as a joyful house, fast and splendidly rooted in the soil.

The man or country that fights priestcraft and priests is to my mind striking deeper for freedom than can be struck anywhere.

See ye not, Courtesy is the true Alchemy, turning to gold all it touches and tries?

Lowly, with a broken neck, The crocus lays her cheek to mire.

The well of true wit is truth itself.

Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her wit: "an unusual combination," in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of her.