Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth, truths are found only in the depths of thought.

As we have said, robust souls are sometimes almost, but not entirely, overthrown by strokes of misfortune....Despair has steps leading upward. From total depression we rise to despondency, from despondency to affliction, from affliction to melancholy. Melancholy is a twilight state in which suffering transmutes into a somber joy....Melancholy is the enjoyment of being sad.

My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic.

The poetic element lying hidden in most women is the source of their magnetic attraction.

Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art.

Great buildings, like great mountains, are the work of centuries.

If nobody loved, the sun would go out.