Discretion is not the better part of biography.

How far the existence of the Academy has influenced French literature, either for good or for evil, is an extremely dubious question.

The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own.

When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower.

Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art.

Human beings are too important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value which is independent of any temporal process──which is eternal, and must be felt for its own sake.