Sacrifice may be a flower that virtue will pluck on its road, but it was not to gather this flower that virtue set forth on its travels.

It is far more important that one's life should be perceived than that it should be transformed; for no sooner has it been perceived, than it transforms itself of its own accord.

Most creatures have a vague belief that a very precarious hazard, a kind of transparent membrane, divides death from love; and that the profound idea of nature demands that the giver of life should die at the moment of giving.

To be good we must needs have suffered; but perhaps it is necessary to have caused suffering before we can become better.

Wisdom requires no form; her beauty must vary, as varies the beauty of flame. She is no motionless goddess, for ever couched on her throne.

How strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words.

When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.

I have never for one instant seen clearly within myself; how then would you have me judge the deeds of others?