The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.

I must keep on rowing, not until I reach port but until I reach my grave.

The more we know the better we forgive. Whoever feels deeply, feels for all who live.

Conversation as talent exists only in France. In other countries, conversation provides politeness, discussion, and friendship; in France, it is an art for which imagination and soul are certainly very welcome, but which can also provide its own secret remedies to compensate you for the absence of either or both, if you so desire.

The only equitable manner in my opinion, of judging the character of a man is to examine if there are personal calculations in his conduct; if there are not, we may blame his manner of judging, but we are not the less bound to esteem him.

That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it.

Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society.