The language of religion can alone suit every situation and every mode of feeling.

[On Italian:] One may almost call it a language that talks of itself, and always seems more witty than its speakers.

[Ridicule] laughs at all those who see the earnestness of life and who still believe in true feelings and in serious thought ... It soils the hope of youth. Only shameless vice is above its reach.

Life often seems like a long shipwreck of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love. - The shores of existence are strewn with them.

Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened.

The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music, which one hears for one's good as one approaches it.

Love is above the laws, above the opinion of men; it is the truth, the flame, the pure element, the primary idea of the moral world.