“...one of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds.”

“Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.”

“Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.”

“I love her beauty, but I fear her mind.”

“They were completely vague. They expressed everything and nothing. 'It is the Æolian harp of style,' thought Julien. 'Amid the most lofty thoughts about annihilation, death, the infinite, etc., I can see no reality save a shocking fear of ridicule.”

“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 criticizes itself incessantly; so far from banishing thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.”

“Indeed, man has two different beings inside him. What devil thought of that malicious touch?”