If artists and poets are unhappy, it is after all because happiness does not interest them.

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.

In each person I catch the fleeting suggestion of something beautiful and swear eternal friendship with that.

Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions... Man, far from being freed from his natural passions, was plunged into artificial ones quite as violent and much more disappointing.

Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.

There is no greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal, as if it were not a benefit and a joy to a man, being what he is, to know that many are, have been, and will be better than he.

The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend.