Nothing else in the world...not all the armies...is so powerful as an idea whose time has come. My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic. My coat and I live comfortably together. It has assumed all my wrinkles, does not hurt me anywhere, has molded itself on my deformaties, and is complacent to all my movements, and I only feel its presence because it keeps me warm. Old coats and old friends are the same thing. 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. Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise. Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved. Life is a voyage. Let us have compassion for those under chastisement. Alas, who are we ourselves? Who am I and who are you? Whence do we come and is it quite certain that we did nothing before we were born? This earth is not without some resemblance to a gaol. Who knows but that man is a victim of divine justice? Look closely at life. It is so constituted that one senses punishment everywhere. Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it. 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. | 
