A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the dawn."À qui la faute? (1872)

Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced.

...Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven.

Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing.

With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!" He added with a pause: "Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.

Without vanity, without coquetry, without curiosity, in a word, without the fall, woman would not be woman. Much of her grace is in her frailty.

Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.

The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real.

Liberation is not deliverance.