We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves. The consciousness of wrong-doing makes us irritable, and our heart, in its cunning, quarrels with what is outside it, in order that it may deafen the clamor within.

We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.

There are 2 sorts of pride: one in which we approve others, the other in which we cannot accept ourselves.

Let the living live; and you, gather together your thoughts, leave behind you a legacy of feeling and ideas; you will be most useful so.

Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.

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

Before crime is committed conscience must be corrupted, and every bad man who succeeds in reaching a high point of wickedness begins with this.