My remembrance of the past is a novel I am constantly recomposing; and it would not be a historical novel, but sheer fiction, if the material events which mark and ballast my career had not their public dates and characters scientifically discoverable.

It would hardly be possible to exaggerate man's wretchedness if it were not so easy to overestimate his sensibility

The Fates, like an absent-minded printer, seldom allow a single line to stand perfect and unmarred.

It is a revenge the devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion they have suppressed and think themselves superior to.

Prayer is not a substitute for work; it is an effort to work further and be efficient beyond the range of one's powers.

The works of nature first acquire a meaning in the commentaries they provoke.

Oaths are the fossils of piety.