Delphi, Greece - 20071. "A compliment is like a kiss through a veil."
2. "A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it."
3. “Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.”
4. "A library implies an act of faith."
5. "All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word "no." To "no" there is only one answer and that is "yes." Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread."
6. “A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.”
7. “And the dream that our mind had sketched in haste
Shall others continue, but never complete.
For none upon earth can achieve his scheme;
The best as the worst are futile here:
We wake at the self-same point of the dream,--
All is here begun, and finished elsewhere.”
8. ”An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.”
9. “As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.”
10. "Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings."
11. “Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.”
12. "Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when; whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees".
13. "Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit."
14. "Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education."
15. “Dark Error's other hidden side is truth.”
16. “Dream no small dreams. They have no power to stir the souls of men.”
17. "Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet."
18. "For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern."
19. ”Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.”
20. “For words are the Word, and the Word is God.”
21. "From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought."
22. "Genius is a promontory jutting out of the infinite."
23. “Habit is the nursery of errors.”
24. “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.”
25. “Have no fear of robbers or murderers. Such dangers are without, and are but petty. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. What matters it what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think only of what threatens our souls.”
26. “Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.”
27. "He does not weep who does not see."
28. "He who opens a school door, closes a prison."
29. “How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.
30. ”If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.”
31. “I had a dream my life would be different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”
32. "I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul."
33. "In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world follows them with their eyes. These men go up the mountain, enter the clouds, disappear, reappear, People watch them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. They daringly pursue their road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black specks. On they go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, at each step a trap. As they rise the cold increases. They must make their ladder, cut the ice and walk on it., hewing the steps in haste. A storm is raging. Nevertheless they go forward in their madness. The air becomes difficult to breath. The abyss yawns below them. Some fall. Others stop and retrace their steps; there is a sad weariness. The bold ones continue. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about them: the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere."
34. "Initiative is doing the right thing without being told."
35. "In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy persons. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former.”
36. "It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life."
37. “It is not enough to be wicked to prosper.”
38. "It is not enough for us to prostrate ourselves under the tree which is Creation, and to contemplate its tremendous branches filled with stars. We have a duty to perform, to work upon the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to worship the incomprehensible while rejecting the absurd; to accept, in the inexplicable, only what is necessary; to dispel the superstitions that surround religion --to rid God of His Maggots."
39. "It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive. Why should it exaggerate? There is that which should be destroyed and that which should be simply illuminated and studied. How great is the force of benevolent and searching examination! We must not resort to the flame where only light is required."
40. “It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.”
41. "Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."
42. “Let us be like a bird for a moment perched
On a frail branch when he sings;
Though he feels it bend, yet he sings his song,
Knowing that he has wings.”
43. “Liberation is not deliverance.”
44. “Life is a voyage.”
45. "Life is the flower for which love is the honey."
46. “Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.”
47. "Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved."
48. “Like our dawn, merely a sob of light.”
49. “Love is a heavenly breath of the air of paradise.”
50. “Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.”
51. "Loving is half of believing."
52. “Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.”
53. "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossile to be silent."
54. “My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic.”
55. “Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul."
56. "Nature is unforgiving; she will not agree to withdraw her flowers, her
music, her scents, or her rays of light before the abominations of man."
57. “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.”
58. “No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted. Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.”
59. "No one ever keeps a secret so well as a child."
60. “One can dream of something more terrible than a hell where one suffers; it's a hell where one would get bored.”
61. "One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on the other hand one cannot be a good historian of this inner life without taking into account outward events where these are relevant. They are two orders of fact which reflect each other, which are always linked and which sometimes provoke each other."
62. "One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation."
63. "Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds."
64. “People do not lack strength; they lack will.”
65. “Seeing so much poverty everywhere makes me think that God is not rich. He gives the appearance of it, but I suspect some financial difficulties.”
66. "Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind, and the gleam of the stars-all the beauties of creation."
67. "Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold, lost as it is in the depths, small, isolated, a pin-point, brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it; nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds."
68. "So different are the colours of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side."
69. “Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.”
70. “Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.”
71. "Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed."
72. "The book which the reader now holds in his hands, from one end to the other, as a whole and in its details, whatever gaps, exceptions, or weaknesses it may contain, treats of the advance from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsity to truth, from darkness to daylight, from blind appetite to conscience, from decay to life, from bestiality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from limbo to God. Matter itself is the starting-point, and the point of arrival is the soul. Hydra at the beginning, an angel at the end."
73. “The greatest blunders, like the thickest ropes, are often compounded of a multitude of strands. Take the rope apart, separate it into the small threads that compose it, and you can break them one by one. You think, "That is all there was!" But twist them all together and you have something tremendous.”
74. “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
75. ”The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.”
76. “Then press my lips, where plays a flame of bliss,--
A pure and holy love-light,--and forsake
The angel for the woman in a kiss,
At once I wish,
My soul will wake!”
77. “The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has come to be disbelieved. Few people daresay nowadays that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at eachother. Yet that is the way love begins, and only that way. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than the great shocks that two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.”
78. “There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.”
79. ”There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.“
80. "There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling."
81. “There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood tomorrow.”
82. “There is one spectacle grander than the sea... That is the sky;
There is one spectacle grander than the sky, and that is...
The Interior of the soul.”
83. “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”
84. “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
85. “Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure.”
86. “To be a saint is the exception; to be upright is the rule. Err, falter, sin, but be upright. To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. Sin is a gravitation.”
87. “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
88. "Toleration is the best religion."
89. “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
90. “Upon the first goblet he read this inscription, monkey wine; upon the second, lion wine; upon the third, sheep wine; upon the fourth, swine wine. These four inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness: the first, that which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalizes.”
91. "We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer."
92. "We are the children of our own deeds."
93. “We declare to you that the earth has exhausted its contingent of master-spirits. Now for decadence and general closing. We must make up our minds to it. We shall have no more men of genius.”
94. “We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved; of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself; and this assurance the blind man possesses. In his affliction, to be served is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? no. Possessing love he is not deprived of light. A love, moreover, that is wholly pure. There can be no blindness where there is this certainty.”
95. “What's our baggage? Only vows,
Happiness, and all our care,
And the flower that sweetly shows
Nestling lightly in your hair.”
96. “When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.”
97. "Whenever we encounter the Infinite in man, however imperfectly understood, we treat it with respect. Whether in the synagogue, the mosque, the pagoda, or the wigwam, there is a hideous aspect which we execrate and a sublime aspect which we venerate. So great a subject for spiritual contemplation, such measureless dreaming—the echo of God on the human wall!"
98. "When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age."
99. “When two souls, which have sought each other for however long in the throng, have finally found each other, when they have seen that they are matched, are in sympathy and compatible, in a word, that they are alike, there is then established for ever between them a union, fiery and pure as they themselves are, a union which begins on earth and continues for ever in heaven. This union is love, true love, such as in truth very few men can conceive of, that love which is a religion, which deifies the loved one, whose life comes from devotion and passion, and for which the greatest sacrifices are the sweetest delights.”
100. “Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?”
101. “Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.”
102. “You'll see that, since our fate is ruled by chance,
Each man, unknowing, great,
Should frame life so that at some future hour
Fact and his dreamings meet.”
2. "A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it."
3. “Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.”
4. "A library implies an act of faith."
5. "All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word "no." To "no" there is only one answer and that is "yes." Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread."
6. “A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.”
7. “And the dream that our mind had sketched in haste
Shall others continue, but never complete.
For none upon earth can achieve his scheme;
The best as the worst are futile here:
We wake at the self-same point of the dream,--
All is here begun, and finished elsewhere.”
8. ”An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.”
9. “As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.”
10. "Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings."
11. “Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.”
12. "Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when; whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees".
13. "Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit."
14. "Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education."
15. “Dark Error's other hidden side is truth.”
16. “Dream no small dreams. They have no power to stir the souls of men.”
17. "Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet."
18. "For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern."
19. ”Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.”
20. “For words are the Word, and the Word is God.”
21. "From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought."
22. "Genius is a promontory jutting out of the infinite."
23. “Habit is the nursery of errors.”
24. “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.”
25. “Have no fear of robbers or murderers. Such dangers are without, and are but petty. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. What matters it what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think only of what threatens our souls.”
26. “Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.”
27. "He does not weep who does not see."
28. "He who opens a school door, closes a prison."
29. “How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.
30. ”If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.”
31. “I had a dream my life would be different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”
32. "I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul."
33. "In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world follows them with their eyes. These men go up the mountain, enter the clouds, disappear, reappear, People watch them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. They daringly pursue their road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black specks. On they go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, at each step a trap. As they rise the cold increases. They must make their ladder, cut the ice and walk on it., hewing the steps in haste. A storm is raging. Nevertheless they go forward in their madness. The air becomes difficult to breath. The abyss yawns below them. Some fall. Others stop and retrace their steps; there is a sad weariness. The bold ones continue. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about them: the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere."
34. "Initiative is doing the right thing without being told."
35. "In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy persons. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former.”
36. "It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life."
37. “It is not enough to be wicked to prosper.”
38. "It is not enough for us to prostrate ourselves under the tree which is Creation, and to contemplate its tremendous branches filled with stars. We have a duty to perform, to work upon the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to worship the incomprehensible while rejecting the absurd; to accept, in the inexplicable, only what is necessary; to dispel the superstitions that surround religion --to rid God of His Maggots."
39. "It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive. Why should it exaggerate? There is that which should be destroyed and that which should be simply illuminated and studied. How great is the force of benevolent and searching examination! We must not resort to the flame where only light is required."
40. “It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.”
41. "Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."
42. “Let us be like a bird for a moment perched
On a frail branch when he sings;
Though he feels it bend, yet he sings his song,
Knowing that he has wings.”
43. “Liberation is not deliverance.”
44. “Life is a voyage.”
45. "Life is the flower for which love is the honey."
46. “Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.”
47. "Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved."
48. “Like our dawn, merely a sob of light.”
49. “Love is a heavenly breath of the air of paradise.”
50. “Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.”
51. "Loving is half of believing."
52. “Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.”
53. "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossile to be silent."
54. “My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic.”
55. “Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul."
56. "Nature is unforgiving; she will not agree to withdraw her flowers, her
music, her scents, or her rays of light before the abominations of man."
57. “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.”
58. “No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted. Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.”
59. "No one ever keeps a secret so well as a child."
60. “One can dream of something more terrible than a hell where one suffers; it's a hell where one would get bored.”
61. "One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on the other hand one cannot be a good historian of this inner life without taking into account outward events where these are relevant. They are two orders of fact which reflect each other, which are always linked and which sometimes provoke each other."
62. "One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation."
63. "Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds."
64. “People do not lack strength; they lack will.”
65. “Seeing so much poverty everywhere makes me think that God is not rich. He gives the appearance of it, but I suspect some financial difficulties.”
66. "Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind, and the gleam of the stars-all the beauties of creation."
67. "Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold, lost as it is in the depths, small, isolated, a pin-point, brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it; nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds."
68. "So different are the colours of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side."
69. “Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.”
70. “Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.”
71. "Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed."
72. "The book which the reader now holds in his hands, from one end to the other, as a whole and in its details, whatever gaps, exceptions, or weaknesses it may contain, treats of the advance from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsity to truth, from darkness to daylight, from blind appetite to conscience, from decay to life, from bestiality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from limbo to God. Matter itself is the starting-point, and the point of arrival is the soul. Hydra at the beginning, an angel at the end."
73. “The greatest blunders, like the thickest ropes, are often compounded of a multitude of strands. Take the rope apart, separate it into the small threads that compose it, and you can break them one by one. You think, "That is all there was!" But twist them all together and you have something tremendous.”
74. “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
75. ”The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.”
76. “Then press my lips, where plays a flame of bliss,--
A pure and holy love-light,--and forsake
The angel for the woman in a kiss,
At once I wish,
My soul will wake!”
77. “The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has come to be disbelieved. Few people daresay nowadays that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at eachother. Yet that is the way love begins, and only that way. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than the great shocks that two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.”
78. “There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.”
79. ”There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.“
80. "There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling."
81. “There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood tomorrow.”
82. “There is one spectacle grander than the sea... That is the sky;
There is one spectacle grander than the sky, and that is...
The Interior of the soul.”
83. “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”
84. “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
85. “Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure.”
86. “To be a saint is the exception; to be upright is the rule. Err, falter, sin, but be upright. To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. Sin is a gravitation.”
87. “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
88. "Toleration is the best religion."
89. “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
90. “Upon the first goblet he read this inscription, monkey wine; upon the second, lion wine; upon the third, sheep wine; upon the fourth, swine wine. These four inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness: the first, that which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalizes.”
91. "We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer."
92. "We are the children of our own deeds."
93. “We declare to you that the earth has exhausted its contingent of master-spirits. Now for decadence and general closing. We must make up our minds to it. We shall have no more men of genius.”
94. “We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved; of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself; and this assurance the blind man possesses. In his affliction, to be served is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? no. Possessing love he is not deprived of light. A love, moreover, that is wholly pure. There can be no blindness where there is this certainty.”
95. “What's our baggage? Only vows,
Happiness, and all our care,
And the flower that sweetly shows
Nestling lightly in your hair.”
96. “When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.”
97. "Whenever we encounter the Infinite in man, however imperfectly understood, we treat it with respect. Whether in the synagogue, the mosque, the pagoda, or the wigwam, there is a hideous aspect which we execrate and a sublime aspect which we venerate. So great a subject for spiritual contemplation, such measureless dreaming—the echo of God on the human wall!"
98. "When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age."
99. “When two souls, which have sought each other for however long in the throng, have finally found each other, when they have seen that they are matched, are in sympathy and compatible, in a word, that they are alike, there is then established for ever between them a union, fiery and pure as they themselves are, a union which begins on earth and continues for ever in heaven. This union is love, true love, such as in truth very few men can conceive of, that love which is a religion, which deifies the loved one, whose life comes from devotion and passion, and for which the greatest sacrifices are the sweetest delights.”
100. “Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?”
101. “Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.”
102. “You'll see that, since our fate is ruled by chance,
Each man, unknowing, great,
Should frame life so that at some future hour
Fact and his dreamings meet.”
