Every one must bear his own universe, and most persons are moderately interested in learning how their neighbors have managed to carry theirs.

Energy is the inherent effort of every multiplicity to become unity.

Analogies are figures intended to serve as fatal weapons if they succeed, and as innocent toys if they fail.

Women have, commonly, a very positive moral sense; that which they will, is right; that which they reject, is wrong; and their will, in most cases, ends by settling the moral.

Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

The great word Evolution had not yet, in 1860, made a new religion of history, but the old religion had preached the same doctrinefor a thousand years without finding in the entire history of Rome anything but flat contradiction.

By nature, man is lazy, working only under compulsion; and when he is strong we will always live, as far as he can, upon the labor or the property of the weak.