The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own.
With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin.
During this earlier period of his activity Voltaire seems to have been trying - half unconsciously, perhaps - to discover and to express the fundamental quality of his genius.
A writer’s promise is like a tiger’s smile
There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages.
In sheer genius Pascal ranks among the very greatest writers who have lived upon this earth. And his genius was not simply artistic; it displayed itself no less in his character and in the quality of his thought.