The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to appreciate bodily motions.

Everything that we do affects our fate for better or for worse. The circumstances into which we are born also exert a tremendous influence; we come into the world with debits and credits for which we are not responsible already posted to our account: this teaches us humility.

Passion such as hers is all consent, asking little in return. I had merely to enter a room where she was to see her face take on that peaceful expression of one who is resting in bed. If I touched her, I had the impression that all the blood in her veins was turning to honey.

The founding of libraries was like constructing more public granaries, amassing reserves against a spiritual winter which by certain signs, in spite of myself, I see ahead.

Men who care passionately for women attach themselves at least as much to the temple and to the accessories of the cult as to their goddess herself.

If you love life you also love the past, because it is the present as it has survived in memory." Translation by David Downie

On the whole, however, it is only out of pride or gross ignorance, or cowardice, that we refuse to see in the present the lineaments of times to come.