Vicomte de Chateaubriand Quotes

Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.

Aristocracy has three successive ages: the age of superiorities, that of privileges, and that of vanities. Having passed out of the first, it degenerates in the second, and dies away the third.

It is with sorrows, as with countries, each man has his own.

There is no religion without mystery. God Himself is the great secret of Nature.

Music is the child of prayer, the companion of religion.

As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.

Justice is the bread of the nation; it is always hungry for it.

Whence comes the powerful impression that is made upon us by the tomb? Are a few grains of dust deserving of our veneration? Certainly not; we respect the ashes of our ancestors for this reason only--because a secret voice whispers to us that all is not extinguished in them. It is this that confers a sacred character on the funeral ceremony among all the nations of the globe; all are alike persuaded that the sleep, even of the tomb, is not everlasting, and that death is but a glorious transfiguration.

The Grecian history is a poem, Latin history a picture, modern history a chronicle.

The heart is like the tree that given balm for the wounds of man only when the iron has pierced it.