All thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness [...] At the root of all our experiences and all our reflections, we find [...] a being which immediately recognises itself, [...] and which knows its own existence, not by observation and as a given fact, nor by inference from any idea of itself, but through direct contact with that existence. Self-consciousness is the very being of mind in action.

The essence of the miracle of forgiveness is that it brings peace to the previously anxious, restless, frustrated, perhaps tormented soul.

There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.

You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?' I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore an inclement and pitiless sky.' That is not what I meant,' interrupted my father, as obstinate as the trees and as pitiless as the sky.

The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.

Public Opinion... an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.