Friendship is like those ancient altars where the unhappy, and even the guilty, found a sure asylum.

Real sorrow is almost as difficult to discover as real poverty. An instinctive delicacy hides the rays of the one and the wounds of the other.

When any one tells you that he belongs to no party, you may at any rate be sure that he does not belong to yours.

Old age is the night of life, as night is the old age of the day. Still, night is full of magnificence; and, for many, it is more brilliant than the day.

It would seem that by our sorrows only are we called to a knowledge of the Infinite. Are we happy? The limits of life constrain us on all sides.

True poets, like great artists, have scarcely any childhood, and no old age.

Men are always invoking justice; yet it is justice which should make them tremble.