To be good we must needs have suffered; but perhaps it is necessary to have caused suffering before we can become better.

All mothers are rich when they love their children. There are no poor mothers, no ugly ones, no old ones. Their love is always the most beautiful of joys.

Happiness will never be any greater than the idea we have of it.

Physical suffering apart, not a single sorrow exists that can touch us except through our thoughts.

The value of ourselves is but the value of our melancholy and our disquiet.

The manner in which the hours of freedom are spent determines, no less than labor and war, the moral worth of a nation.

The true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind.