The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.

Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.

Reaction - a boat which is going against the current but which does not prevent the river from flowing on.

Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.

The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate.

Loving is almost a substitute for thinking. Love is a burning forgetfulness of all other things. How shall we ask passion to be logical?

From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought.