We love justice greatly, and just men but little.

Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today it is the reverse.

Present unhappiness is selfish; past sorrow is compassionate.

The chief cause of our misery is less the violence of our passions than the feebleness of our virtues.

The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.

The historian must be a poet; not to find, but to find again; not to breathe life into beings, into imaginary deeds, but in order to re-animate and revive that which has been; to represent what time and space have placed at a distance from us.

Interest, ambition, fortune, time, temper, love, all kill friendship.