Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace; he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds over the universe.

Books take their place according to their specific gravity as surely as potatoes in a tub.

When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field, the next man will appear.

The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.

Excite the soul, and the weather and the town and your condition in the world all disappear; the world itself loses its solidity, nothing remains but the soul and the Divine Presence in which it lives.

Ne te quaesiveris extra." (Do not seek for things outside of yourself)