Lytton Strachey Quotes

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 peace and civilization.

With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin.

When the French nation gradually came into existence among the ruins of the Roman civilization in Gaul, a new language was at the same time slowly evolved.

When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower.

Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.

Though, with the ascendancy of Louis, the political power of the nobles finally came to an end, France remained, in the whole complexion of her social life, completely aristocratic.

There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages.

The stability and peace which seemed to be so firmly established by the brilliant monarchy of Francis I vanished with the terrible outbreak of the Wars of Religion.

The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.

The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction – in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.

The amateur is very rare in French literature – as rare as he is common in our own.

Modern as the style of Pascal’s writing is, his thought is deeply impregnated with the spirit of the Middle Ages. He belonged, almost equally, to the future and to the past.

In the literature of France Moliere occupies the same kind of position as Cervantes in that of Spain, Dante in that of Italy, and Shakespeare in that of England. His glory is more than national – it is universal.