Idleness, pleasure, what abysses! To do nothing is a dreary course to take, be sure of it. To live idle upon the substance of society! To be useless, that is to say, noxious! This leads straight to the lowest depth of misery.

You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater mystery, woman.

Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children.

Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure.

War can only be qualified by its object, and there is neither foreign war nor civil war, there is only just or unjust war.

During a wise man's whole life, his destiny holds his philosophy in a state of siege.

The first proof of charity in a priest, and especially a bishop, is poverty.