We want our friend as a man of talent, less because he has talent than because he is our friend.

Conscientious men are, almost everywhere, less encouraged than tolerated.

The philosopher spends in becoming a man the time which the ambitious man spends in becoming a personage.

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

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

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.

In youth one has tears without grief; in age, griefs without tears