People who climb from one rung of society to another can never do anything simply.

If we study Nature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we cannot fail to recognize the possibility of enchantment - giving to that word its exact significance.

For avarice begins where poverty ends.

Genius is answerable only to itself; it is the sole judge of the means, since it alone knows the end; thus genius must consider itself as above the law, for it is the task of genius to remake the law; moreover the man who frees himself from his time and place may take everything, hazard everything, for everything is his by right.

Passions are no more forgiving than human laws and they reason more justly. Are they not based on a conscience of their own, infallible as an instinct?

A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.

Wisdom is that apprehension of heavenly things to which the spirit rises through love.