Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

• I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel.
• Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.
• To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.
• Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd it must be communicated by contagion.
• To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.
• Common sense is the measure of the possible it is composed of experience and prevision it is calculation applied to life.
• Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.
• Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence.
• Society lives by faith, and develops by science.
• Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.