Happy the man when he has not the defects of his qualities.

The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract. Whenever the mind of a writer is saturated with the full inspiration of a great author, a quotation gives completeness to the whole; it seals his feelings with undisputed authority.

Centuries have not worm-eaten the solidity of this ancient furniture of the mind.

After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.

Education, however indispensable in a cultivated age, produces nothing on the side of genius. When education ends, genius often begins.

Quotations, like much better things, has its abuses.

A learned historian declared to me of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a silent virtue.