Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.

Nature reacts not only to physical disease, but also to moral weakness; when the danger increases; she gives us greater courage

To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.

Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.

Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.

An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress; and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.

At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.