When I speak to you about myself, I am speaking to you about yourself. How is it you don't see that?

Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love.

...Human thought has no limit. At its risk and peril, it analyzes and dissects its own fascination. We could almost say that, by a sort of splendid reaction, it fascinates nature; the mysterious world surrounding us returns what it receives; it is likely that contemplators are contemplated.

Art needs no spur beyond itself.

There is no supernatural, there is only nature. Nature alone exists and contains all. All is. There is the part of nature that we perceive, and the part of nature that we do not perceive. ... If you abandon these facts, beware; charlatans will light upon them, also the imbecile. There is no mean: science, or ignorance. If science does not want these facts, ignorance will take them up. You have refused to enlarge human intelligence, you augment human stupidity. When Laplace withdraws Cagliostro appears.

Excitement is not enjoyment: in calmness lies true pleasure. The most precious wines are sipped, not bolted at a swallow.

A republic may be called the climate of civilization.