Envy and hatred go together. Mutually strengthened by the fact pursue the same object.

The sublime only paints the true, and that too in noble objects; it paints it in all its phases, its cause and its effect; it is the most worthy expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find out the exact expression, and use synonymes.

When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.

There are some extraordinary fathers, who seem, during the whole course of their lives, to be giving their children reasons for being consoled at their death.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!

As riches and honor forsake a man, we discover him to be a fool, but nobody could find it out in his prosperity.

The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.