There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

If you don't build castles in the air you won't build anything on the ground.

A fall from such a height is rarely straight downwards.

I am an intelligent river which has reflected successively all the banks before which it has flowed by meditating only on the images offered by those changing shores.

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him that after descending into those depths after long groping in the blackest of this darkness, he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, and that he held it in his hand; and it blinded him to look at it. (pg. 231)

To think of shadows is a serious thing.