“There appears to be a touch of free-will in angels as in demons — same as humans and animals.”

Source: The Lost Symbol

Said while the French financial system was on the verge of collapse, as quoted in Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) by E. Cobham Brewer. Brewer states that this was sometimes attributed to the Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, but that he was probably simply quoting Madame de Pompadour.

Source: Conversations with Tennessee Williams

His opinion on Arturo Toscanini’s recordings which indicated his “understanding of music—individualistically interpretive, personal and profound—allowed him to see beyond known and accepted horizons. Quoted in "Medtner, Music & a Maharaja".

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART I: THIS WORLD, Chapter 5. Of Our Methods of Recognizing One Another
Context: p>You, who are blessed with shade as well as light, you, who are gifted with two eyes, endowed with a knowledge of perspective, and charmed with the enjoyment of various colours, you, who can actually SEE an angle, and contemplate the complete circumference of a circle in the happy region of the Three Dimensions — how shall I make clear to you the extreme difficulty which we in Flatland experience in recognizing one another's configuration?Recall what I told you above. All beings in Flatland, animate or inanimate, no matter what their form, present TO OUR VIEW the same, or nearly the same, appearance, viz. that of a straight Line. How then can one be distinguished from another, where all appear the same?</p