“Love is the most terrible, and also the most generous of the passions; it is the only one which includes in its dreams the happiness of someone else.”

“Uncertainty is the worst of all evils until the moment when reality makes us regret uncertainty.”

“Botany is the art of insulting flowers in Greek and Latin.”

“A widow is like a frigate of which the first captain has been shipwrecked.”

“Flowing water is at once a picture and a music, which causes to flow at the same time from my brain, like a limpid and murmuring rivulet, sweet thoughts, charming reveries, and melancholy remembrances.”

“Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.”

“In friendship, as in love, we are often happier through our ignorance than our knowledge.”

“Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow's bliss.”