“Heroes in history seem to us poetic because they are there. But if we should tell the simple truth of some of our neighbors, it would sound like poetry.”

A tree which has lost its head will never recover it again, and will survive only as a monument of the ignorance and folly of its Tormentor.

True invective requires great imagination.

The test of civilization is the estimate of woman.

Happiness lies, first of all, in health.

Good taste consists first upon fitness.

Happiness is speechless.

Patriotism is the vital condition of national permanence.

Imagination is as good as many voyages – and how much cheaper.

Progress begins with the minority. It is completed by persuading the majority, by showing the reason and the of the step forward, and that is accomplished by appealing to the intelligence of the majority.

In the journey of the year, the autumn is Venice, spring is Naples, certainly, and the majestic maturity of summer is Rome.

Romance like a ghost escapes touching; it is always where you are not, not where you are. The interview or conversation was prose at the time, but it is poetry in the memory.

A journal should be neither an echo nor a pander.

Criticism is not construction, it is observation.

Virtue does not truly reward her votary if she leaves him sad and half doubtful whether it would not have been better to serve vice.

While we read history we make history.

Stratagem is the right hand of cunning.