Friendship is the ideal; friends are the reality; reality always remains far apart from the ideal.

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.

To love is to choose.

Since unhappiness excites interest, many, in order to render themselves interesting, feign unhappiness.

A face which is always serene possesses a mysterious and powerful attraction: sad hearts come to it as to the sun to warm themselves again.

Morality is the fruit of religion: to desire the former without the latter is to desire an orange without an orange-tree.

Education, properly understood, is that which teaches discernment.