This religion takes away the courage of thinking of unusual things and prohibits self-examination above all as the most egregiousof sins.... It is one step away from protestantism.

Conversationis like the table of contents of a dull book.... All the greatest subjects of human thought are proudly displayedin it. Listen to it for three minutes, and you ask yourself which is more striking, the emphasis of the speaker or his shocking ignorance.

It is not enough for a landscape to be interesting in itself. Eventually there must be a moral and historic interest.

If you want to be witty, work on your character and say what you think on every occasion.

People who have been made to suffer by certain things cannot be reminded of them without a horror which paralyses every other pleasure, even that to be found in reading a story.

The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.

Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.