The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.
The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human.
There shall be no slavery of the mind.
First it was necessary to civilize man in relation to man. Now it is necessary to civilize man in relation to nature and the animals.
There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.
Not seeing people permits us to imagine them with every perfection.
The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.
Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.
When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.
What says the law? You will not kill. How does it say it? By killing!
A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in museums, just as instruments of torture are now, and the people will be astonished that such a thing could have been.
If people did not love one another, I really don’t see what use there would be in having any spring.
Woe, alas, to those who have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will rob them of everything. Try to love souls, you will find them again.
Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.
Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.
What a gloomy thing, not to know the address of one’s soul.
It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.
A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict’s suit or a monarch’s crown.
The thirst for the Infinite proves infinity.
One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.