There is nothing so beautiful, lovable and moving as the English countryside. - Stendhal

At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

his fine and tender eyes filled her with terror. They seemed at times to be gazing into heaven and reflecting the bliss that they saw there. A moment later, one read in them the torments of the damned.

Love born in the brain is more spirited, doubtless, than true love, but it has only flashes of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it criticises itself incessantly; so far from banishing thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.