Good humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us.

He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men; he is marked by a sign.

Every rebel is, with us, more or less a soldier who has missed his vocation, a being made for a heroic life ... The European race is a race of masters and soldiers. If you reduce this noble race to the work in a slave's prison like Negroes or Chinamen, it will rebel.

History is as much an art as a science.

The ignorance of French society gives one a rough sense of the infinite.

As soon as sacrifice becomes a duty and necessity to mankind. I see no limit to the horizon which opens before him.

Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people.