Words express only the feelings we know already.

collections are amusing only in the making; afterwards they are like sporting prints without the sport. The sons of collectors inherit only the corpse of their fathers' satisfied passion.

One should make one's life a mosaic. Let the general design be good, the colors lively, and the materials diversified.

history ... a sort of immortality turned upside down. Her life stretched backwards through ten centuries.

The arts are good and providential in that they allow the soul to imitate the movements of love, and to feel love without its being returned - which, perhaps, is the only way of feeling it permanently.

The affairs of the royal house form a subject of conversation for those who, as a rule, would have no conversation.

Children never grow tired; their likes and dislikes are constant; let them laugh at something once and they laugh always; do what you will, they are sure to say, 'Do it again!