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

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

there are no nationalities in heaven.

Words express only the feelings we know already.

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.

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

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.