In correct theology, the Virgin ought not to be represented in bed, for she could not suffer like ordinary women, but her palace at Chartres is not much troubled by theology, and to her, as empress-mother, the pain of child-birth was a pleasure which she wanted her people to share.

Every syllable that can be struck out is pure profit, and every page that can be economised is a five-per-cent dividend. Nature rebels against this rule; the flesh is weak, and shrinks from the scissors; I groan in retrospect over the weak.

Laplace would have found it child's-play to fix a ratio of progression in mathematical science between Descartes, Leibnitz, Newton and himself

History is the most aristocratic of all literary pursuits, because it obliges the historian to be rich as well as educated.

American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

If one shed tears, they must be shed on one's pillow.