You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and society adds to your power; but with my will, sir, you can do nothing.

... what is there over which the incomparable beauty of childhood would not triumph?

Nature distributes her favors unequally.

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

Where love is absent there can be no woman.

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

nature has not changed. The night is still unsullied, the stars still twinkle, and the wild thyme smells as sweetly now as it did then ... We may be afflicted and unhappy, but no one can take from us the sweet delight which is nature's gift to those who love her and her poetry.