As long as we love, we lend to the beloved object qualities of mind and heart which we deprive him of when the day of misunderstanding arrives.

Success causes us to be more praised than known.

That which deceives us and does us harm, also undeceives us and does us good.

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.

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.

That which we know is but little; that which we have a presentiment of is immense; it is in this direction that the poet outruns the learned man.

We often experience more regret over the part we have left, than pleasure over the part we have preferred.