Loyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.

If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.

[Raphael's] great superiority is due to the instinctive sense which, in him, seems to desire to shatter form. Form is, in his figures, what it is in ourselves, an interpreter for the communication of ideas and sensations, an exhaustless source of poetic inspiration. Every figure is a world in itself, a portrait of which the original appeared in a sublime vision, in a flood of light, pointed to by an inward voice, laid bare by a divine finger which showed what the sources of expression had been in the whole past life of the subject.

To have fame follow us is well, but it is not a desirable avant-courier.

When she lives at his palace, the maiden niece of a bishop can pass for a respectable woman because, if she has a love affair, she is obliged to hoodwink her uncle.

Marriage must fight constantly against a monster which devours everything: routine.

For the person who loves God, worship is the daily bread of patience.