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

She might have melted a heart of stone, but nothing can melt a heart of wood.

Wisdom and eloquence are not always united.

We shall look on crime as a disease, and its physicians shall displace the judges, its hospitals displace the Galleys. Liberty and health shall be alike. We shall pour balm and oil where we formerly applied iron and fire; evil will be treated in charity, instead of in anger. This change will be simple and sublime.

We are not loved by our friends for what we are; rather, we are loved in spite of what we are.

To crush out fanaticism and revere the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to falling prostrate beneath the tree of creation and contemplating its vast ramifications full of stars. We have a duty to perform, to cultivate the human soul, to defend mystery against miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and to reject the absurd; to admit nothing that is inexplicable excepting what is necessary, to purify faith and obliterate superstition from the face of religion, to remove the vermin from the garden of God.

There is no more sovereign eloquence than the truth in indignation.