[Ridicule] laughs at all those who see the earnestness of life and who still believe in true feelings and in serious thought ... It soils the hope of youth. Only shameless vice is above its reach.

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

Never, never have I been loved as I love others!

Life teaches much, but to all thinking persons it brings ever closer the will of God - not because their faculties decline, but on the contrary, because they increase.

Anything that happens gradually is always irrevocable.

A Gothic building engenders true religion ... The light, falling through colored glass, the singular forms of the architecture, unite to give a silent image of that infinite mystery which the soul for ever feels, and never comprehends.

The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music, which one hears for one's good as one approaches it.