An old philosopher said to Monsieur Coignard, a Reverend Father: ‘You are a pig!’ To which Abad Coignard answered: ‘You flatter me, sir. But unfortunately, I’m only a man.’
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.
The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.
Irony and pity are two good counselors: one, in smiling, makes life pleasurable; the other, who cries, makes it sacred.
Suffering! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.
We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best.
Our passions are ourselves.
All the good writers of confessions, from Augustine onwards, are men who are still a little in love with their sins.
Silence is the wit of fools.
The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it.
The Kingdom of Heaven is a military autocracy and there is no public opinion in it.
Lack of understanding is a great power. Sometimes it enables men to conquer the world.
Human affairs inspire in noble hearts only two feelings-admiration or pity.
He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and this pretension itself is a very great prejudice.
We have drugs to make women speak, but none to keep them silent.
Nothing spoils a confession like repentance.
America, where thanks to Congress, there are forty million laws to enforce the Ten Commandments.
For every monarchy overthrown the sky becomes less brilliant, because it loses a star. A republic is ugliness set free.
God forbids suicide, and is unwilling that his creatures should destroy themselves.
War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war.