Do you love me? Means at last do you see the same truth I see? If you do, we are happy together; but when presently one of us passes into the perception of a new truth, we are divorced and the force of all nature cannot hold us to each other.

Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.

The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps.

Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those which are sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil.

The surest poison is time.

Every man beholds his human condition with a degree of melancholy. As a ship aground is battered by the waves, so man, imprisonedin mortal life, lies open to the mercy of coming events.

The cardinal virtue of a teacher [is] to protect the pupil from his own influence.