It is difficult to escape from the prevailing disease of one's generation.

A good book is an event in my life.

People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of anextreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.

Only great minds can afford a simple style.

The French are the wittiest, the most charming, and up to the present, at all events, the least musical race on Earth.

When intimacy followed love in Italy there were no longer any vain pretensions between two lovers.

The first virtue of a young man today - that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers - is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains.