The publication of a book only brings very paltry results to its author.

I say, I believe, that one must love with all of one's being.

The masses are still ungrateful or ignorant. They prefer murder, poisonings, and crimes generally to a literature possessed of style and feeling.

My strength has not equaled my mad ambition. I have remained obscure; I have done worse -- I have touched success, and allowed it to escape me.

Humanity is outraged in me and with me. We must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation, which is one of the most passionate forms of love.

Butterflies are but flowers that blew away one sunny day when Nature was feeling at her most inventive and fertile.

Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.