The miserable’s name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.
The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity; in a young girl it is boldness.
One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. In the case of the sailor, this is called a tide; in the case of the guilty, it is called remorse.
On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree: We must die.
Nothing is so stifling as symmetry. Symmetry is boredom, the quintessence of mourning. Despair yawns. There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering – a hell of boredom.
Nothing is more dangerous than discontinued labor; it is habit lost. A habit easy to abandon, difficult to resume.
Not seeing people permits us to imagine in them every perfection.
No one ever keeps a secret so well as a child.
No one but a woman knows how to say things which are at once gentle and deep.
Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.
Many great actions are committed in small struggles.
Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.