Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or, rather, have made it desired.

We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.

We are always making God our accomplice, that so we may legalize our own iniquities. Every successful massacre is consecrated by a Te Deum, and the clergy have never been wanting in benedictions for any victorious enormity.

I find myself regarding existence as though from beyond the tomb, from another world; all is strange to me; I am, as it were, outside my own body and individuality; I am depersonalized, detached, cut adrift. Is this madness?

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.

The mind must have for ballast the clear conception of duty, if it is not to fluctuate between levity and despair.

I am a spectator, so to speak, of the molecular whirlwind which men call individual life; I am conscious of an incessant metamorphosis, an irresistible movement of existence, which is going on within me - and this phenomenology of myself serves as a window opened upon the mystery of the world.