Civilization is perhaps approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time. Romantic Christendom - picturesque, passionate, unhappy episode - may be coming to an end. Such a catastrophe would be no reason for despair.

It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

It is a new road to happiness, if you have strength enough to castigate a little the various impulses that sway you in turn.

Sometimes we have to change the truth in order to remember it.

The theater, for all its artifices, depicts life in a sense more truly than history.

The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity.