“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.”

“If ever thou shalt love,In the sweet pangs of it remember me;For such as I am all true lovers are,Unstaid and skittish in all motions elseSave in the constant image of the creatureThat is beloved.”

“Love sees with the heart and not with mind.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”