Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.

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.

The habits of every animal are, at least in the eyes of man, constantly similar in all ages. But the habits, the clothes, the words and the dwelling of a prince, a banker, an artist, a bourgeois, a priest and a pauper, are wholly dissimilar and change at the will of civilizations.

It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the race of giants.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.

The more one judges, the less one loves.

Too great a display of delicacy can and does sometimes infringe upon de-cency.