When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul.

Man's characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by a material environment brutally imposed on him, but by a conscience superior to his own, the superiority of which he feels. Because the greater, better part of his existence transcends the body, he escapes the body's yoke, but is subject to that of society.

I can be free only to the extent that others are forbidden to profit from their physical, economic, or other superiority to the detriment of my liberty.

When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary; when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.

Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.