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

... 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.

The brain is a tool that gets rusty without constant, albeit moderate, exercise.

The life of great geniuses is nothing but a sublime storm.

... the progress of the language has caused us to lose many old treasures. It is thus with all progress, and one must make the best of it.

I regard as a mortal sin not only the lying of the senses in matters of love, but also the illusion which the senses seek to create where love is only partial. I say, I believe, that one must love with all of one's being, or else live, come what may, a life of complete chastity.

Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.