Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.

You don't know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word.

He loved the extensive vaults where you could hear the night birds and the sea breeze; he loved the craggy ruins bound together by ivy, those dark halls, and any appearance of death and destruction. Having fallen so far from so high a position, he loved anything that had also fallen from a great height

Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.

Stupidity is an immovable object: you can't try to attack it wiithout being broken by it.

One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought!

What is glory? It is to have a lot of nonsense talked about you.