“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.”

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

“A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succeeded.It is shewing your inferiority. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior.”

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

“La politique au milieu des intérêts d'imagination, c'est un coup de pistolet au milieu d'un concert.”

“La politique dans une oeuvre littéraire, c'est un coup de pistolet au milieu d'un concert, quelque chose de grossier et auquel pourtant il n'est pas possible de refuser son attention.”

“The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.”