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 own.
— Madame de Stael
In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.
Speech happens to not be his language.
The more I see of men the more I like dogs.
Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ, and the difference of things that are alike.
Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.
The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies God in us.
The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.
Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.
Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened.
The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes.
Men err from selfishness; women because they are weak.
A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.
When a noble life has prepared for old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.
To be totally understanding makes one very indulgent.
A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.
The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.
We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.
Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.
The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.
Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.
One must choose in life between boredom and suffering.
That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it.
Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.
Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.
The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.
Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's.
Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.