The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.

The beautiful souls of the world have an art of saintly alchemy, by which bitterness is converted into kindness, the gall of human experience into gentleness, ingratitude into benefits, insults into pardon.

Our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be.

In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past - a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared.

The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. Mystery, on the other hand, is demanded and pursued by the religious instinct; mystery constitutes the essence of worship.

The best path through life is the highway.

Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.