The present moment is a powerful goddess.

There is repetition everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.

The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.

Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.

Literature is a fragment of a fragment. Of all that ever happened, or has been said, but a fraction has been written; and of this but little is extant.

The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.

My days are as happy as those reserved by God for his elect; and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not tasted joy— the purest joy of life.