Every invalid is a prisoner.

I have never seasoned a truth with the sauce of a lie in order to digest it more easily

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.

Leaving behind books is even more beautiful — there are far too many children.

Morals are a matter of private agreement; decency is of public concern.

Everything turns out to be valuable that one does for one’s self without thought of profit.

The landscape of my days appears to be composed, like mountainous regions, of varied materials heaped up pell-mell. There I see my nature, itself composite, made up of equal parts of instinct and training. Here and there protrude the granite peaks of the inevitable, but all about is rubble from the landslips of chance.