one is never got out of the cave, one comes out of it.

Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.

To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice. Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue).

I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.

Prayer consists simply in giving to God all the careful attention of which the soul is capable.

Two forces rule the universe: light and gravity.

A well ordered society would be one where the State only had a negative action, comparable to that of a rudder: a light pressure at the right moment to counteract the first suggestion of any loss of equilibrium.