National literature begins with fables and ends with novels.

Fully to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it.

How many books there are whose reputation is made that would not obtain it were it now to make?

Truth takes the stamp of the souls it enters. It is rigorous and rough in arid souls, but tempers and softens itself in loving natures.

The paper is patient, but the reader is not.

Virtue is the health of the soul. It gives a flavor to the smallest leaves of life.

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