We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love.

Have you not observed that faith is generally strongest in those whose character may be called the weakest?

New doctrines ever displease the old. They like to fancy that the world has been losing wisdom, instead of gaining it, since they were young.

I never was able to believe in the existence of next year except as in a metaphysical notion.

Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society.

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.

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?