Must it ever be thus-that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harrasses me.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original.

Whatever is the object of a saint's hope is the subject of his prayer.

What we don't understand we don't possess.

Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.

The philosophers must station themselves in the middle.