The tomb is not a blind alley: it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight. It opens on the dawn.

Knowledge is a weight added to conscience.

One sometimes says: 'He killed himself because he was bored with life.' One ought rather to say: 'He killed himself because he was bored by lack of life.'

The Parisian is to the French what the Athenian was to the Greeks: no one sleeps better than he, no one is more openly frivolous and idle, no one appears more heedless. But this is misleading. He is given to every kind of listlessness, but when there is glory to be won he may be inspired with every kind of fury. Give him a pike and he will enact the tenth of August, a musket and you have Austerlitz. He was the springboard of Napoleon and the mainstay of Danton. At the cry of "la patrie" he enrols, and at the call of liberty he tears up the pavements. Beware of him!

I'm not in the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls

I would rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion.

It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive.... We must not resort to the flame where only light is required.