How much past there is in a life, however brief it be..

In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable..

Liberty is the only idea which circulates with the human blood, in all ages, in all countries, and in all literature - liberty that is, and what cann….

When men do wrong, it is out of hardness; when women do wrong, it is out of weakness..

And all the bustle of departure - sometimes sad, sometimes intoxicating - just as fear or hope may be inspired by the new chances of coming destiny..

The study of history, it seems to me, leads to the conviction that all important events tend toward the same end - the civilization of mankind..

What matters in a character is not whether one holds this or that opinion: what matters is how proudly one upholds it..

... in the history of the human mind there has never been a useful thought or a profound truth that has not found its century and admirers..

That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it..

To pray together, in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that man can contract in this life..

Anything that happens gradually is always irrevocable..

Venice astonishes more than it pleases at first sight..

In women's destiny everything goes downhill except for thought, whose immortal nature it is to keep constantly rising..

No nation has the right to bring about a revolution, even though such a change may be most urgently needed, if the price is the blood of one single i….

We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love..

Prayer is more than meditation. In meditation the source of strength is one's self. When one prays he goes to a source of strength greater than his o….

The universe is in France; outside it, there is nothing..

New doctrines ever displease the old. They like to fancy that the world has been losing wisdom, instead of gaining it, since they were young..

The face of a woman, whatever be the force or extent of her mind, whatever be the importance of the object she pursues, is always an obstacle or a re….

Be happy, but be happy through piety..

Whatever is natural admits of variety..