A beautiful woman seductively dressed will never catch cold no matter how low-cut her gown.

If God had wanted to become an object of love, he would first of all have had to forgo judging and justice : a judge, and even a gracious judge, is no object of love.

To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there.

An educator never says what he himself thinks, but only that which he thinks it is good for those whom he is educating to hear.

You want to be paid as well, you virtuous! You want reward for virtue, and heaven for earth, and eternity for your today?

What was formerly merely sickly now becomes indecent : it is indecent to be a Christian today.

We find nothing easier than being wise, patient, superior. We drip with the oil of forbearance and sympathy, we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. For that very reason we ought to discipline ourselves a little; for that very reason we ought to cultivate a little emotion, a little emotional vice, from time to time. It may be hard for us; and among ourselves we may perhaps laugh at the appearance we thus present. But what of that! We no longer have any other mode of self-overcoming available to us: this is our asceticism, our penance.