“I call “crystallization” that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.”

A very small matter, when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it.

An English traveller relates how he lived upon intimate terms with a tiger; he had reared it and used to play with it, but always kept a loaded pistol on the table.

Signs cannot be represented, in a spy’s report, so damningly as words.

Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will. There are no age limits for love.

A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader’s soul.

It is difficult to escape from the prevailing disease of one’s generation.

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.

A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.

The more one pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly.

One of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds.

The first virtue of a young man today – that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers – is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains.

Love has always been the most important business in my life; I should say the only one.

At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.

This religion takes away the courage of thinking of unusual things and prohibits self-examination above all as the most egregious of sins. It is one step away from protestantism.

Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.