We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest.

There are natures that go to the streams of life in great cities as the hart goes to the water brooks.

As there is no pleasure in military life for a soldier who fears death, so there is no independence in civil existence for the man who has an overpowering dread of solitude.

What delights us in the spring is more a sensation than an appearance, more a hope than any visible reality. There is something in the softness of the air, in the lengthening of the days, in the very sounds and odors of the sweet time, that caresses us and consoles us after the rigorous weeks of winter.

People have prejudices against a nation in which they have no acquaintances.

The one mistake which is committed habitually by people who have the gift of half-genius, is waiting for inspiration.

High culture always isolates, always drives men out of their class, and makes it more difficult for them to share naturally and easily the common class-life around them. They seek the few companions who can understand them, and when these are not to be had within a traversable distance, they sit and work alone.