“It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.”

“A writers promise is like a tigers smile”

“For ignorance is the first requisite of the historianignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection that unattainable by the highest art.”

“There was hardly an eminent writer in Paris who was unacquainted with the inside of the Conciergerie or the Bastille.”

“It was not by gentle sweetness and self-abnegation that order was brought out of chaos; it was by strict method, by stern discipline, by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labor, by the fixed ...”

“The old interests of aristocracy - the romance of action, the exalted passions of chivalry and war - faded into the background, and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of pea...”