The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.

To love beauty is to see light.

Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.

To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time, especially in that kind of mock rurality, ugly but odd, and partaking of two natures, which surrounds certain large cities, particularly Paris.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.

When we are at the end of life, to die means to go away; when we are at the beginning, to go away means to die.

Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.