“What a pity to see a mind as great as Napoleon's devoted to trivial things such as empires, historic events, the thundering of cannons and of men; he believed in glory, in posterity, in Caesar; nations in turmoil and other trifles absorbed all his attention ... How could he fail to see that what really mattered was something else entirely?”

“His heart is a desert island.... The whole scope, the whole energy of his mind surround and protect him; his depths isolate him and guard him against the truth. He flatters himself that he is entirely alone there.... Patience, dear lady. Perhaps, one day, he will discover some footprint on the sand.... What holy and happy terror, what salutary fright, once he recognizes in that pure sign of grace that his island is mysteriously inhabited!...”

“She is entirely in her closed eyes, and quite alone with her soul, in the bosom of the most intimate attention... She feels in herself that she is becoming some event.”

“To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.”

“I think of the presence and of the habits of mortals in this so fluid stream, and reflect that I was among them, striving to see all things just as I see them at this very moment. I then placed Wisdom in the eternal station which now is ours. But from here all is unrecognizable. Truth is before us, and we no longer understand anything at all.”

“The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.”

“But Socrates cannot but have been meditating upon something?... Can he ever remain solitary with himself -- and silent to his very soul!”