Sects differ more in name than tenets.

There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

There are two kinds of poets: those who feel and those who express themselves. The former are happier.

If certain women walk straight into adultery, there are many others who cling to numerous hopes, and commit sin only after wandering through a maze of sorrows.

We do not attach ourselves lastingly to anything that has not cost us care, labor or longing.

During the great storms of our lives we imitate those captains who jettison their weightiest cargo.

Good befalls us while we sleep, sometimes.