“It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.”

“To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd. ”

“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”

“I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it. Nor can I embark in search of the savages of Canada, because the maladies to which I am condemned render a European surgeon necessary to me; because war is going on in those regions; and because the example of our actions has made the savages nearly as bad as ourselves. [in response to Rousseau's "The Social Contract"]”

“(...) the translator of prose is the slave of the author and the translator of poetry is his rival.”

“It is safe to say that poetry cannot be translated.”

“Poetry is what gets lost in translation.”