Every time a new nation, America or Russia for instance, advances toward civilization, the human race perfects itself; every time an inferior class emerges from enslavement and degradation, the human race again perfects itself.

There is no second country for an Englishman, except a ship and the sea.

intellect is a sin that must be atoned for by leading exactly the life of those who have none.

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.

[On Italian:] One may almost call it a language that talks of itself, and always seems more witty than its speakers.

When at eve, at the bounding of the landscape, the heavens appear to recline so slowly on the earth, imagination pictures beyond the horizon an asylum of hope, - a native land of love; and nature seems silently to repeat that man is immortal.

Men do not change; they unmask themselves.