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To mingle with one's life a certain presence of the sepulchre is the law of the wise man, and it is the law of the ascetic. In this relation, the ascetic and the sage tend towards a common centre.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.

Not seeing people permits us to imagine in them every perfection.

Those who pray always are necessary to those who never pray. In our view, the whole question is in the amount of thought that is mingled with prayer. Leibnitz, praying, is something grand; Voltaire, worshipping, is something beautiful. Deo erexit Voltaire.

A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour.

Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy.

It is a mistake to imagine that man can exhaust his destiny, or can reach the bottom of anything whatever. Alas! what are all these destinies thus driven pell-mell? whither go they? why are they so? He who knows that, sees all the shadow. He is alone. His name is God.

Without at all invalidating what we have just said, we believe that a perpetual remembrance of the tomb is proper for the living. On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree: We must die.

Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibers.

One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. In the case of the sailor, this is called a tide; in the case of the guilty, it is called remorse.

Years place at last a venerable crown upon a head.

A faith is a necessity to man. Woe to him who believes nothing.