Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger of being lost -that is to say, one of the elements, whether good or bad, which have shaped and complicated civilization -is to extend the scope of social observation and to serve civilization.

He who is not master of his own thoughts is not accountable for his own deeds.

To see so much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich. He keeps up appearances, it is true, but I feel the pinch. He gives a revolution as a merchant, whose credit is low, gives a ball.

Everything speaks: the flowing airstream and the sailing halycon, the blade of grass, the flower, the bud, the element; did you imagine the universe to be otherwise?

To have lied is to have suffered.

Let us leave to the brain what belongs to it, and agree that the work of the men of genius is of the superhuman, the offspring of man.