Nature, who permits no two leaves to be exactly alike, has given a still greater diversity to human minds. Imitation, then, is a double murder; for it deprives both copy and original of their primitive existence.

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.

Love is admiring with the heart. And admiring is loving with the mind.

inventiveness is childish, practice sublime.

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.

Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society.

There is no reality on this earth except religion and the power of love; all the rest is even more fugitive than life itself.