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.

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

The unfinished is nothing.

[I]t is truth alone-scientific, established, proved, and rational truth-which is capable of satisfying nowadays the awakened minds of all classes. We may still say perhaps, 'faith governs the world,'-but the faith of the present is no longer in revelation or in the priest-it is in reason and in science.

Will localizes us, thought universalizes us.

Doubt of the reality of love ends by making us doubt everything.