It is not enough to forgive; one must forget.

If one hour's work is enough to govern France, four minutes is all that is needed for Italy. There is no nation more easily frightened; even its poetic imagination predisposes it to fear, and they look upon power as on an image that fills them with terror.

Self-love, so sensitive in its own cause, has rarely any sympathy to spare for others.

Venice astonishes more than it pleases at first sight.

The memories which come to us through music are not accompanied by any regrets; for a moment music gives us back the pleasures it retraces, and we feel them again rather than recollect them.

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

Love is above the laws, above the opinion of men; it is the truth, the flame, the pure element, the primary idea of the moral world.