The word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally employed, is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept it and we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of which the semi-circle is the father.

To think of shadows is a serious thing.

If it were (Is it not) outrageous that society should treat with such rigid precision those of its members who were most poorly endowed in the distribution or wealth that chance had made, and who were, therefore, most worthy of indulgence.

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated; that does not prevent them from being of use.

The left-handed are precious; they take places which are inconvenient for the rest.

The soul does not give itself up to despair until it has exhausted all illusions.