Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

I should write for the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labors should be burnt every morning and no eye shine upon them.

The Public - a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility.

Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer.

To the very last, he [Napoleon] had a kind of idea; that, namely, of la carrière ouverte aux talents, - the tools to him that can handle them.

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.