The memory of an absent person shines in the deepest recesses of the heart, shining the more brightly the more wholly its object has vanished: a light on the horizon of the despairing, darkened spirit; a star gleaming in our inward night.

Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.

A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.

Wisdom and eloquence are not always united.

The poetic element lying hidden in most women is the source of their magnetic attraction.

The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does not yet permeate it.

Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface.