God put in man thought; society, action; nature, revery.

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

You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope.

...Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread.

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.

There is such a thing as the pressure of darkness.

There is nothing like a dream to create the future.