Loving is half of believing.

I believe in religion against the religious; in the pitifulness of orisons, and in the sublimity of prayer.

One of the hardest labours of the just man is to expunge from his soul a malevolence which it is difficult to efface.

The mother...swinging the children by pulling on a length of string, while at the same time she kept and eye on them with that protective watchfulness, half animal, half angelic, which is the quality of motherhood.

The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.

Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.

God has made the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.