Tradesmen regard an author with a mixed feeling of terror, compassion and curiosity.

Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps.

The great secret of social alchemy is to profit best from each stage in our lives, to gather all its leaves in spring, all its flowers in summer, and all its fruits in autumn.

Grief ennobles the commonest people because it has its own essential grandeur. To shine with the luster of grief, a person need only be sincere.

There is neither vice nor virtue, there are only circumstances.

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

Bankers are lynxes. To expect any gratitude from them is equivalent to attempting to move the wolves of the Ukraine to pity in the middle of winter.