Serendipitous discoveries are made by chance, found without looking for them but possible only through a sharp vision and sagacity, ready to see the unexpected and never indulgent with the apparently unexplainable.

Without grace no book can live, and with it the poorest may have its life prolonged.

It is charming to totter into vogue.

I do not dislike the French from the vulgar antipathy between neighboring nations, but for their insolent and unfounded air of superiority.

The contempt of money is no more a virtue than to wash one's hand is one; but one does not willingly shake hands with a man that never washes his.

One's mind suffers only when one is young and while one is ignorant of the world. When one has lived for some time, one learns that the young think too little and the old too much, and one grows careless about both.

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.