The soul paints itself in our machines.

When the painter wishes to represent an event, he cannot place before us too great a number of personages; but he cannot employ too few when he wishes to portray an emotion.

A temperate style is alone classical.

Forms of government become established of themselves. They shape themselves, they are not created. We may give them strength and consistency, but we cannot call them into being. Let us rest assured that the form of government can never be a matter of choice: it is almost always a matter of necessity.

Happy is the man who can do only one thing; in doing it, he fulfills his destiny.

The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.

Antiquity! I like its ruins better than its reconstructions.