Justice has its anger, my lord Bishop, and the wrath of justice is an element of progress. Whatever else may be said of it, the French Revolution was the greatest step forward by mankind since the coming of Christ. It was unfinished, I agree, but still it was sublime. It released the untapped springs of society; it softened hearts, appeased, tranquilized, enlightened, and set flowing through the world the tides of civilization. It was good. The French Revolution was the anointing of humanity.

The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real.

Love is the only future God offers.

There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven; there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the conscience.

A translation in verse . . . seems to me something absurd, impossible.

To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.

She worked in order to live, and presently fell in love, also in order to live, for the heart, too, has its hunger.