Sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another, makes it one of the dearest employments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to solicitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty?

Religious doctrines would do well to withdraw their pretension to be dealing with matters of fact. That pretension is not only the source of the conflicts of religion with science and the vain and bitter controversies of sects; it is also the cause of the impurity and incoherence of religion in the soul.

Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.

Heaven is to be at peace with things.

The best men in all ages keep classic traditions alive

Art like life, should be free, since both are experimental.

Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden in the depths.