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

Men do not change; they unmask themselves.

Goethe has made a remark upon the perfectability of the human mind, which is full of sagacity: It is always advancing, but in a spiral line.

Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.

a perfect piece of architecture kindles that aimless reverie, which bears the soul we know not whither.

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.

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