“The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.”

“Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.”

“If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.”

“When a nation which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant rises at last and throws off its chains, do you call that weakness? The man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease which in the absence of excitement he could scarcely move; he who under the rage of an insult attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies,—are such persons to be called weak? My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness?”

“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.”

“Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. But what else are you?”

“Whatever truths or fables you may find in a thousand books, it is all a tower of Babel unless love holds it together.”