Up to that time, the Republic, the Empire, had been to him only monstrous words. The Republic, a guillotine in the twilight; the Empire, a sword in the night. He had just taken a look at it, and where...
True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do
True history being a mixture of all things, the true historian mingles in everything.
To travel is to be born and to die at every instant; perhaps, in the vaguest region of his mind, he did make comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence: all the things of life ar...
To place the infinity here below in contact, by the medium of thought, with the infinity on high, is called praying.
To pay compliments to the one we love is the first method of caressing, a demi-audacity venturing. A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.
To love, or to have loved,—this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfilment.
To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further, There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.
To lie a little is not possible: he who lies, lies the whole lie.
To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to prostrating ourselves before the tree of creation, and to the contemplation of its branches full of s...
To a gargoyle on the ramparts of Notre Dame as Esmeralda rides off with Gringoire Quasimodo says. Why was I not made of stone like thee?
Thus those two beings, so exclusively and touchingly devoted, who had lived so long for each other alone, came to suffer side by side, each through the other, without ever speaking of the matter, with...
Thus it is. And we sacrifice ourselves for these visions, which are almost always illusions for the sacrificed, but illusions with which, after all, the whole of human certainty is mingled. We throw o...
This is what floats up confusedly, pell-mell, for the year 1817, and is now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot do otherwise; the infinity would overwhelm it. Neverthe...
They pray.To whom?To God.To pray to God, - what is the meaning of these words?Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent, permanent; necessarily substantial, since it is infinite...
They adored each other; but still the permanent and the immutable subsist. We may love and laugh, pout, clasp hands, smile, and exchange endearments, but that does not affect eternity. Two lovers hide...
These are dark radiances. They have no suspicion that they are to be pitied. Certainly they are so. He who does not weep does not see. They are to be admired and pitied, as one would both pity and adm...
There is lucidity inspired by the nearness of the grave:to be close to death is to see clearly
There comes a day when the young girl glances in this manner. Woe to him who chances to be there! That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, is like the dawn in the sky. It
There are men who work hard, digging for gold: he worked hard, digging for pity. The misery of the world was his mine. Pain everywhere was an occasion for goodness always.