The little people must be sacred to the big ones, and it is from the rights of the weak that the duty of the strong is comprised.

In the relations of man with the animals, with the flowers, with all the objects of creation, there is a whole great ethic, scarcely perceived as yet, which will at length break through into the light, and which will be the corollary and the complement to human ethics.

A bird sings, a child prattles, but it is the same hymn; hymn indistinct, inarticulate, but full of profound meaning.

One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on the other hand one cannot be a good historian of this inner life without taking into account outward events where these are relevant.

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.

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

I will be Chateaubriand or nothing.