The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he will work at it come hell or high water.
The more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense will be its love of music.
The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.
Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.
This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
To be loved at first sight, a man should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face.
To describe happiness is to diminish it.
True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.
Women are always eagerly on the lookout for any emotion.
The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.
One can acquire everything in solitude except character.
If you think of paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured.
It is the nobility of their style which will make our writers of 1840 unreadable forty years from now.
Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.
Love has always been the most important business in my life, I should say the only one.