The persons whom you have idolized can never, in the end, be ungrateful, and, probably, at the time of retreat they still do justice to your heart. But, so long as you must draw persons too near you, a temporary recoil is sure to follow. It is the character striving to defend itself from a heating and suffocating action upon it.

Nature provides exceptions to every rule.

Preparations are good in life, prologues ruinous.

Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering pot and the pruning knife.

... the Power who gave a power, by its mere existence, signifies that it must be brought out towards perfection.

How anyone can remain a Catholic - I mean who has ever been aroused to think, and is not biased by the partialities of childish years - after seeing Catholicism here in Italy I cannot conceive.

Man is not made for society, but society is made for man. No institution can be good which does not tend to improve the individual.