There is a slowness in affairs which ripens them, and a slowness which rots them.

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.

In youth one has tears without grief; in age, griefs without tears

I look at what I have and think myself unhappy; others look at what I have and think me happy

Our experience is composed rathery of illusions that of wisdom acquired.

What is experience? A poor little hut constructed from the ruins of the palace of gold and marble called our illusions

We love justice greatly, and just men but little

That which deceives us and does us harm, also undeceives us and does us good

Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today it is the reverse