Science is Christian, not when it condemns itself to the letter of things, but when, in the infinitely little, it discovers as many mysteries and as much depth and power as in the infinitely great.

What we share with another ceases to be our own.

Time is the fairest and toughest judge.

Philosophy may be dodged, eloquence cannot.

I mistrust the satisfaction which makes a display of the possession of Infinity; that is called fatuity in philosophic terms.

The ceding of Alsace-Lorraine is nothing but war in perpetuity under the mask of peace.

What are all political and social institutions, but always a religion, which in realizing itself, becomes incarnate in the world?

Today as in the time of Pliny and Columella, the hyacinth flourishes in Wales, the periwinkle in Illyria, the daisy on the ruins of Numantia; while around them cities have changed their masters and their names, collided and smashed, disappeared into nothingness, their peaceful generations have crossed down the ages as fresh and smiling as on the days of battle.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.

Universal orthodoxy is enriched by every new discovery of truth: what at first appeared universal, by wishing to stand still, sooner or later becomes a sect.