On n'est point un homme supérieur parce qu'on aperçoit le monde sous un jour odieux. On ne hait les hommes et la vie que faute de voir assez loin. - François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand

Chateaubriand was attached to the past and its centuries-old traditions, but he was also a liberal, open to modernity: this is one thing that sets him apart in the history of ideas. He had been repulsed by the discourse and the violence of the French revolutionaries and was deeply impressed by the powerful composure of George Washington, “the representative of the needs, ideas, intelligence, and opinions of his epoch.

La douleur n'est pas une affection qu'on épuise comme le plaisir.

Aristocracy has three successive stages: the age of superiority, the age of privilege, and the age of vanity. Once through with the first, it degenerates into the second, and dies out in the third.