Conscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.

Happy the land where the writers are sad, the merchants satisfied, the rich melancholic, and the populace content.

What matters in a character is not whether one holds this or that opinion: what matters is how proudly one upholds it.

The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.

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.

The mind may be exhausted, but the language of the heart is inexhaustible.

Providence protects us in all the details of our lot.