In other words, although I don't like them, we do need noble-spirited souls.

The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb.

The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come.

But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.

The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.

Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.

Nothing is more fleeting than external form, which withers and alters like the flowers of the field at the appearance of autumn.