A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend.

I study much, and the more I study, the oftener I go back to those first principles which are so simple that childhood itself can lisp them.

When fresh sorrows have caused us to take some steps in the right way, we may not complain. We have invested in a life annuity, but the income remains.

Indifferent souls never part. Impassioned souls part, and return to one another, because they can do no better.

I like people to be saints; but I want them to be first and superlatively honest men.

We are all of us, in this world, more or less like St. January, whom the inhabitants of Naples worship one day, and pelt with baked apples the next.

The Christian's God is a God of metamorphoses. You cast grief into his bosom: you draw thence, peace. You cast in despair: 'tis hope that rises to the surface. It is a sinner whose heart he moves. It is a saint who returns him thanks.