Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.

There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.

And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover.

People only see what they are prepared to see. If you look for what is good and what you can be grateful for you will find it everywhere.

You cannot give anything to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts you in debt by his magnanimity.

Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

...man is an analogist, and studies relations in all objects. He is placed in the center of beings, and a ray of relation passes from every other being to him. And neither can man be understood without these objects, nor these objects without man.