Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.

A few words worthy to be remembered suffice to give an idea of a great mind. There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition.

A work is perfectly finished only when nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away.

Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.

There is an admiration which is the daughter of knowledge.

The early and the latter part of human life are the best, or, at least, the most worthy of respect; the one as the age of innocence, the other of reason.

Today there are no more irreconcilable enmities, because there are no more disinterested emotions: that's a good thing born from a bad thing.