In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.

Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait. There is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all.

From the child of five to myself is but a step. But from the newborn baby to the child of five is an appalling distance.

Anything is better than lies and deceit!

I feel not only that I cannot disappear, as nothing disappears in the world, but that I will always be and have always been. I feel that, besides me, above me, spirits live, and that in this world there is truth.

You've said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing," he was saying; "but you know that friendship's not what I want: that there's only one happiness in life for me, that word that you dislike so...yes, love!

... a man has to think of his soul before everything else.