Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.

The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both.

When God desires to destroy a thing, he entrusts its destruction to the thing itself. Every bad institution of this world ends by suicide.

A noble soul and real poetic talent are almost always inseparable.

One of the hardest tasks is to extract continually from one's soul an almost inexhaustible ill will.

The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.