The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.

Kings are for nations in their swaddling-clothes: France has attained her majority.

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.

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

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.

These two beings, who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching a love, and who had lived so long for each other, were now suffering beside one another and through one another; without speaking of it, without harsh feeling, and smiling all the while.

Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.