Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.

To be always ready a man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied.

Are we not all shipwrecked,...condemned to death?... However impatient our neighbours make us, however much indignation our race arouses, we are all bound together, and the companions of a chain-gang have everything to lose by mutual insults.

At bottom there is but one subject of study: the forms and metamorphoses of mind. All other subjects may be reduced to that; all other studies bring us back to this study.

Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.

A thousand things advance; nine hundred and ninety nine retreat; That is progress.

Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.