A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection, there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sigh that you will recognize it.

Every kind of reward constitutes a degradation of energy.

The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.

The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.

We do injury to a child if we bring it up in a narrow Christianity, which prevents it from ever becoming capable of perceiving that there are treasures of purest gold to be found in non-Christian civilizations. Laical education does an even greater injury to children. It covers up those treasures, and those of Christianity as well.