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.

At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

The only unhappiness is a life of boredom.

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

I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.

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.