Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists.

If ignorance and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated classes.

There is no repose for the mind except in the absolute; for feeling, except in the infinite; for the soul, except in the divine.

The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.

Order is man's greatest need, and his true well-being.

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.

It would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon, loved, encouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to give, kindness and goodwill. But to hunt down consideration and reputation - to force the esteem of others - seemed to me an effort unworthy of myself, almost a degradation.