Death is the justification of all the ways of the Christian, the last end of all his sacrifices, the touch of the Great Master which completes the picture.

We do not judge men by what they are in themselves, but by what they are relatively to us.

The symptoms of compassion and benevolence, in some people, are like those minute guns which warn you that you are in deadly peril.

Truth only is prolific. Error, sterile in itself, produces only by means of the portion of truth which it contains. It may have offspring, but the life which it gives, like that of the hybrid races, cannot be transmitted.

In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose.

To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.

Love sometimes elevates, creates new qualities, suspends the working of evil inclinations; but only for a day. Love, then, is an Oriental despot, whose glance lifts a slave from the dust, and then consigns him to it again.