For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old fashioned

It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.

There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books.

To understand oneself is the classic form of consolation; to elude oneself is the romantic.

Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavour to understand him.

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.

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.