Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.

All music, even if its occasion be a gay one, renders us pensive.

Whatever efforts one may make, one must revert to the realization that religion is the real basis of morality; religion is the real and perceptible purpose within us, which alone, can turn aside our attention from things. ... The science of morality can no more teach human beings to be honest, in all the magnificence of this word, than geometry can teach one how to draw.

It is not enough to forgive; one must forget.

Men have made of fortune an all-powerful goddess, in order that she may be made responsible for all their blunder's.

Why shouldn't man be as angry about not having always been alive as about having to stop being alive?

No nation has the right to bring about a revolution, even though such a change may be most urgently needed, if the price is the blood of one single innocent individual.