And custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great p...
You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of heaven. It was necessary to begin there.
You need not tell me who you are. This is not my house; it is the house of Christ. It does not ask any comer whether he has a name but whether he has an affliction.
You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater mystery, woman.
You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience. . . . You ask why I speak? I am neither informed against, nor pursued, nor hunted, say you. Yes! I am informed against! yes! I am pu...
Yes, resumed the Bishop, you have come from a very sad place. Listen. There will be more joy in heaven over the tear-bathed face of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men....
Women play on their beauty as children play with their knives. And they hurt themselves on it, too.
Woe, alas, to the one who shall have loved bodies, forms, appearances only. Death will take everything from him. Try to love souls, you shall find them again
With nihilism, no discussion is possible; for the nihilist logic doubts the existence of its interlocutor, and is not quite sure that it exists itself.
With love there is no middle course: it destroys, or else it saves. All human destiny is contained in that dilemma, the choice between destruction and salvation, which is nowhere more implacably posed...
With just the ‘Carmagnole’ to sing he will only overthrow Louis XVI; but give him the ‘Marseillaise’ and he will liberate the world.
With grand and lofty natures, the revolts of the flesh and the senses when subjected to physical suffering cause the soul to spring forth, and make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions among the...
When two mouths, made sacred by love, draw near to each other to create, it is impossible, that above that ineffable kiss there should not be a thrill in the immense mystery of the stars.
When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.
What is Waterloo? A victory? No. The winning number in the lottery.
What an excellent and really marvellous thing is this materialism! Not every one who wants it can have it. Ah! when one does have it, one is no longer a dupe, one does not stupidly allow one's self to...
We, who do not believe what these women believe, but who, like them, live by faith,—we have never been able to think without a sort of tender and religious terror, without a sort of pity, that is full...
There are no bad plants or bad men. There is only bad husbandry.
There are instincts which respond to all the chance meetings in life. The little girl was not afraid.
The visit took place. It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation.