Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society.

[On Italian:] One may almost call it a language that talks of itself, and always seems more witty than its speakers.

Divine Wisdom, intending to detain us some time on earth, has done well to cover with a veil the prospect of the life to come; for if our sight could clearly distinguish the opposite bank, who would remain on this tempestuous coast of time?

... in the history of the human mind there has never been a useful thought or a profound truth that has not found its century and admirers.

I desire no other proof of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer.

One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.

The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.