Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

The only substance properly so called is the soul.

Our true history is scarcely ever deciphered by others. The chief part of the drama is a monologue, or rather an intimate debate between God, our conscience, and ourselves. Tears, grieves, depressions, disappointments, irritations, good and evil thoughts, decisions, uncertainties, deliberations --all these belong to our secret, and are almost all incommunicable and intransmissible, even when we try to speak of them, and even when we write them down.

Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.

Order is a great person's need and their true well being.

In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past -- a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared.

Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.