Whatever we think out, whatever we take in hand to do, should be perfectly and finally finished, that the world, if it must alter, will only have to spoil it; we have then nothing to do but unite the severed, to recollect and restore the dismembered.

To be loved for what one is, that is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him; their own selves, their version of him.

Every individual who is not creative has a negative, narrow, exclusive taste and succeeds in depriving creative being of its energy and life.

Nothing is worse than active ignorance.

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.

Manners form the great charm of women.