A man who shows no defect is a fool or a hypocrite, whom we should mistrust. There are defects so bound to fine qualities that they announce them,--defects which it is well not to correct.

When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it.

Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself.

It is always our inabilities that vex us.

Religion must be loved as a kind of country and nursing-mother. It was religion that nourished our virtues, that showed us heaven, that taught us to walk in the path of duty.

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth.

Of the two, I prefer those who render vice lovable to those who degrade virtue.