“Earlier 18th-century literary language was not supple enough to connect the life of the imagination to that of the street.”

“18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available.”

“To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life.”

“Is it by chance that the 18th century of France, the century of the "philosophy of enlightenment," did not produce any poets except the Marquis de Sade, who -- despite his participation in the events of this epoch -- expressed the first violent protest against the essential postulates of this period?”

“Language is the medium of literature, and the state of the language at any time can hardly fail to carry literary consequences.”

“Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attibutable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.”