All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

What men call civilization is the condition of present customs; what they call barbarism, the condition of past ones.

For every monarchy overthrown the sky becomes less brilliant, because it loses a star. A republic is ugliness set free.

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.