It is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one.

Englishmen have always loved Moliere.

The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own.

But Racine's extraordinary powers as a writer become still more obvious when we consider that besides being a great poet he is also a great psychologist.

It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.

Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.

The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.