A fluent writer always seems more talented than he is. To write well, one needs a natural felicity and an acquired difficulty.

The idea of the nest in the bird's mind, where does it come from?

A temperate style is alone classical.

To be capable of respect is almost as rare as to be worthy of it.

One man finds in religion his literature and his science, another finds in it his joy and his duty.

Genuine witticisms surprise those who say them as much as those who listen to them; they arise in us in spite of us, or, at least, without our participation,--like everything inspired.

Haughty people seem to me to have, like the dwarfs, the stature of a child and the face of a man.