We shall find in our troubled hearts, where discord reigns, two needs which seem at variance, but which merge, as I think, in a common source - the love of the true, and the love of the fabulous.

The study of social progress is today not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart.

The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.

One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact.

Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?

What is the use of theorizing as to wherein lies the charm that moves us?