The word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally employed, is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept it and we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of which the semi-circle is the father.

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human race has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced.

A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism.

To breathe Paris is to preserve one's soul.

The true artist can only labor con amore.

If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light.