One of the hardest tasks is to extract continually from one's soul an almost inexhaustible ill will.

All that was neither a city, nor a church, nor a river, nor color, nor light, nor shadow: it was reverie. For a long time, I remained motionless, letting myself be penetrated gently by this unspeakable ensemble, by the serenity of the sky and the melancholy of the moment. I do not know what was going on in my mind, and I could not express it; it was one of those ineffable moments when one feels something in himself which is going to sleep and something which is awakening.

Social prosperity means man happy, the citizen free, the nation great.

No one ever keeps a secret so well as a child.

She was sad with an obscure sadness of which she had not the secret herself. There was in her whole person the stupor of a life ended but never commenced.

At a certain depth of distress, the poor, in their stupor, groan no longer over evil, and are no longer thankful for good.

Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars.