Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.

It is easier for a woman to be a good wife than a good mother. A widow has two duties with contrary obligations: she is a mother and she must exercise paternal authority. Few woman are strong enough to understand and to play this role.

The privilege of feeling at home everywhere belongs only to kings, wolves and robbers.

Temperament is the thermometer of character.

Your modest savant smiles as he says to his admirers: What have I done? Nothing. Man does not invent a force, he directs it.

Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings.

Who shall ever tell how much an unmerited disfavor crushes a shy person? Who can ever depict the misfortunes of timidity?