The greatest happiness of life it the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live. Life is the flower for which love is the honey. To love another person is to see the face of God. He who opens a school door, closes a prison. 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. Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education. Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter. Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. 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. | 
