If only the bird with the loveliest song sang, the forest would be a lonely place.

There is but one kind of love; God is love, and all his creatures derive theirs from his; only it is modified by the different degrees of intelligence in different beings and creatures.

The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did the originals appear.

Mathematics was hard, dull work, I thought; geography pleased me more. For my other studies, as well as for dancing, I was quite enthusiastic.

Poor France, thy fine climate, rich vineyards, and the wishes of the learned avail nothing; thou art a destitute beggar, and not the powerful friend thou wert represented to me.

There is the morass, wherein you plunge up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, whereby one treads down the forests of Labrador; and the unexpected bunting or sylvia which perchance, and indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or hear singing from the ground creeping plant.

To have been torn from the study would have been as death; my time was entirely occupied with art.