Genius is a grace. The true man of genius acts by movement or by impulsion.

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.

To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill.

Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its priests. To submit it to the individual discussion is to destroy it; it is given life only through the national mind, that is to say, by political faith, which is a creed.

It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them.