Seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied.

Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything...

What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.

True eloquence makes light of eloquence. True morality makes light of morality.

Who can doubt that we exist only to love? Disguise it, in fact, as we will, we love without intermission... We live not a moment exempt from its influence.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

Man is so great that his greatness appears even in the consciousness of his misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is true that it is misery indeed to know one's self to be miserable; but then it is greatness also. In this way, all man's miseries go to prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a mighty potentate, of a dethroned monarch.