And, moreover, when it happens that both are sincere and good, nothing will mix and amalgamate more easily than an old priest and an old soldier. In reality, they are the same kind of man. One has devoted himself to country upon earth, the other to his country in heaven; there is no other difference.

Don't educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy, so they know the value of things, not the price.

To think is of itself to be useful; it is always and in all cases a striving toward God.

Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.

The mind's eye can nowhere find anything more dazzling or more dark than in man; it can fix itself upon nothing which is more awful, more complex, more mysterious, or more infinite. There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.

It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!