Because a fact seems strange to you, you conclude that it is not one. ... All science, however, commences by being strange. Science is successive. It goes from one wonder to another. It mounts by a ladder. The science of to-day would seem extravagant to the science of a former time. Ptolemy would believe Newton mad.

Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.

During a wise man's whole life, his destiny holds his philosophy in a state of siege.

What makes night within us may leave stars.

The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.

To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.

In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D—— He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D—— since 1806.