There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.
The word which God has written on the brow of every man is Hope.
The wind of revolutions is not tractable.
The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human.
The miserable’s name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.
The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.
The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation’s effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.
The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity; in a young girl it is boldness.
One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.
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 makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.