One can descend by imperceptible degree from the most perfect creature to the most shapeless matter, from the best-organised animal to the roughest mineral.

One can descend by imperceptible degree from the most perfect creature to the most shapeless matter, from the best-organised animal to the roughest mineral.

Those who write as they speak, even though they speak well, write badly.

Style supposes the reunion and the exercise of all the intellectual faculties. The style is the man.

The discoveries that one can make with the microscope amount to very little, for one sees with the mind's eye and without the microscope the real existence of all these little beings.

The human mind cannot create anything. It produces nothing until having been fertilized by experience and meditation; its acquisitions are the germs of its production.

Genius is simply patience carried to the extreme.