If you treat men the way they are you never improve them. If you treat them the way you want them to be, you do.

In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world... how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!

The best fortune that can fall to a man is that which corrects his defects and makes up for his failings.

In praising or loving a child, we love and praise not that which is, but that which we hope for.

One doesn't always lose when one has to do without.

The realization of the self is only possible if one is productive, if one can give birth to one's own potentialities.

We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions.