The book which the reader now holds in his hands, from one end to the other, as a whole and in its details, whatever gaps, exceptions, or weaknesses it may contain, treats of the advance from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsity to truth, from darkness to daylight, from blind appetite to conscience, from decay to life, from bestiality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from limbo to God. Matter itself is the starting-point, and the point of arrival is the soul. Hydra at the beginning, an angel at the end.

Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.

We are reassured almost as foolishly as we are alarmed; human nature is so constituted.

Good actions are the invisible hinges on the doors of heaven.

A poet is a world enclosed in a man.

Houses are like the human beings that inhabit them.

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