Let us investigate more closely this property common to animal and plant, this power of producing its likeness, this chain of successive existences of individuals, which constitutes the real existence of the species.

Time is the great workman of Nature.

To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it is to possess at once intellect, soul, and taste.

Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience.

There is nothing good in love but the physical part.

We can only penetrate the rind of the earth.

He [man] abuses equally other animals and his own species, the rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable vanity of this human being who, destroying others by want, destroys himself by excess.