I am more affected by the attractions of virtue than by the deformities of vice; I turn gently away from the wicked and I fly to meet the good. If there is in a literary work, in a character, in a picture, in a statue, a beautiful spot, that is where my eyes rest; I see only that, I remember only that, all the rest is well-nigh forgotten. What becomes of me when the whole work is beautiful!

What a hell of an economic system! Some are replete with everything while others, whose stomachs are no less demanding, whose hunger is just as recurrent, have nothing to bite on. The worst of it is the constrained posture need puts you in. The needy man does not walk like the rest; he skips, slithers, twists, crawls.

Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.

One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it

There's a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.

I feel, I think, I judge; therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.