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.

In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.

Why not make an end of it all?... My life is a succession of griefs and bitter feelings.... What is death?... A very small matter,when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it.

A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader's soul.

Our true passions are selfish.

...one of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds.

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