Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.

The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power.

Nature clasps all her creatures in a universal embrace; there is not one of them which she has not plainly furnished with all means necessary to the conservation of its being.

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.

I do not portray the thing in itself. I portray the passage; not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people put it, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute.

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

Every man has within himself the entire human condition