Progress is not accomplished in one stage.

There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.

His universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.

Dreaming is happiness. Waiting is life.

...The girls chirped and chatted like uncaged warblers. They were delirious with joy... Intoxications of life’s morning! Enchanted years! The wing of a dragonfly trembles! Oh, reader, whoever you may be, do you have such memories? Have you walked in the underbrush, pushing aside branches for the charming head behind you? Have you slid laughing, down some slope wet with rain, with the woman you loved?

His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own.