Enthusiasm gives life to what is invisible; and interest to what has no immediate action on our comfort in this world.

The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music, which one hears for one's good as one approaches it.

Tombs decked by the arts can scarcely represent death as a formidable enemy; we do not, indeed, like the ancients, carve sports and dances in the sarcophagus, but thought is diverted from the bier by works that tell of immortality, even from the altar of death.

We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love

The most beautiful landscapes in the world, if they evoke no memory, if they bear no trace of a remarkable event, are uninteresting compared to historic landscapes.

Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society.

There are women vain of advantages not connected with their persons, such as birth, rank, and fortune; it is difficult to feel less the dignity of the sex. The origin of all women may be called celestial, for their power is the offspring of the gifts of Nature; by yielding to pride and ambition they soon destroy the magic of their charms.