Admiration and familiarity are strangers.

Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.

If people were not wicked I should not mind their being stupid; but, to our misfortune, they are both.

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.

All your trouble comes from lack of exercise. A man of your strength and constitution ought always to have kept physically active. So don't jibe at the very wise advice that sentences you to one hour's walk a day. You imagine the work of the mind takes place only in the brain; but you're much mistaken. It takes place in the legs as well.

Masterpieces are only lucky attempts.

The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one's eyes.