Men prefer the false due to habit, passion, will. Preference for truth is rare. Men are ruled by their fear of truth.

Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.

Peace is not in itself a dream, but we know it only as the result of a momentary equilibrium--an accident.

Every living being seeks instinctively to complete itself.

What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution.

Oh be swift to live, make haste to be kind.

Time is but the measure of the difficulty of a conception. Pure thought has scarcely any need of time, since it perceives the two ends of an idea almost at the same moment.