However old a conjugal union, it still garners some sweetness. Winter has some cloudless days, and under the snow a few flowers still bloom.

[On Napoleon:] One has the impression of an imperious wind blowing about one's ears when one is near that man.

Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society.

Goethe has made a remark upon the perfectability of the human mind, which is full of sagacity: It is always advancing, but in a spiral line.

We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love.

Genius inspires this thirst for fame: there is no blessing undesired by those to whom Heaven gave the means of winning it.

Every time a new nation, America or Russia for instance, advances toward civilization, the human race perfects itself; every time an inferior class emerges from enslavement and degradation, the human race again perfects itself.