Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. To journey is to be born and die each minute...All the elements of life are in constant flight from us, with darkness and clarity intermingled, the vision and the eclipse; we look and hasten, reaching out our hands to clutch; every happening is a bend in the road...and suddenly we have grown old. We have a sense of shock and gathering darkness; ahead is a black doorway; the life that bore us is a flagging horse, and a veiled stranger is waiting in the shadows to unharness us.

A thousand men enslaved fear one beast free.

Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.

Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, more ecstatic.

A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.

He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality

I believe in religion against the religious; in the pitifulness of orisons, and in the sublimity of prayer.