Where no interest is takes in science, literature and liberal pursuits, mere facts and insignificant criticisms necessarily become the themes of discourse; and minds, strangers alike to activity and meditation, become so limited as to render all intercourse with them at once tasteless and oppressive.

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.

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.

in Italy, almost at every step, history and poetry add to the graces of nature, sweeten the memory of the past, and seem to preserve it in eternal youth.

[On Napoleon:] One has the impression of an imperious wind blowing about one's ears when one is near that man.

nothing is so horrifying as the possibility of existing simply because we do not know how to die.

The education of life perfects the thinking mind, but depraves the frivolous.