The search for causes must come after the collection of facts.

In the stormy current of life characters are weights or floats which at one time make us glide along the bottom, and at another maintain us on the surface.

I wish to reproduce things as they are or as they would be even if I myself did not exist.

For thirty centuries, from her sacred seat the cat looked down, and crouching at her feet, beheld the race of conquering Pharaohs kneel.

Kindly politeness is the slow fruit of advanced reflection; it is a sort of humanity and kindliness applied to small acts and every day discourse: it bids man soften towards others, and forget himself for the sake of others: it constrains genuine nature, which is selfish and gross.

The production of a work of art is determined by the material and intellectual climate in which a man lives and dies.

Four varieties in society: lovers, the ambitious, observers, and fools. The fools are the happiest.