Simplicity is the essence of the great, the true, the beautiful in art.

Anything we destroy in ourselves we destroy in others. Our falls lower others and throw them down; we owe it to our fellows to keep upright, in order that they too may keep their feet.

... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply.

I loved [fairy stories] so, and my mother weighed down by grief had given up telling me them. At Nohant I found Mmes. d'Ardony's and Perrault's tales in old editions which became my chief joy for five or six years ... I've never read them since, but I could tell each tale straight through, and I don't think anything in all one's intellecutal life can be compared to these delights of imagination.

Nature distributes her favors unequally.

A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images.

Discouragement seizes us only when we can no longer count on chance.