Enthusiasm springs from the imagination, and self-sacrifice from the heart. Women are, therefore, more naturally heroic than men. All nations have in their annals some of these miracles of patriotism, of which woman is the instrument in the hands of God.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. I am the fellow citizen of every being that thinks; my country is Truth.

Philosophy is the rational expression of genius.

Private passions grow tired and wear themselves out; political passions, never.

Assassination makes only martyrs, not converts.

We cannot have two hearts, one for the animals and one for men. In cruelty towards the former and cruelty to the latter there is no difference but in the victim.

It is because of the servility of photography that I am fundamentally contemptuous of this chance invention which will never be an art but which plagiarizes nature by means of optics. (1848)