Man may well have covered over and, so to speak, encrusted the truth with the errors he has loaded onto it, but these errors are local, and universal truth will always show itself.

We recognize in a plant some unknown power, a single, form-giving force, which creates and conserves, which moves unwaveringly toward its end, which appropriates what is useful to it and rejects that which would harm it.

No man has ceased to believe in God before having decided that he should not exist; no book would produce atheism, and no book can restore faith.

Man in harmony with his Creator is sublime, and his action is creative; equally, once he separates himself from God and acts alone, he does not cease to be powerful, since this is the privilege of his nature, but his acts are negative and lead only to destruction.

Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its priests. To submit it to the individual discussion is to destroy it; it is given life only through the national mind, that is to say, by political faith, which is a creed.

Without doubt, God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it.

Man, in spite of his fatal degradation, bears always the evident marks of his divine origin, in that every universal belief is always more or less true.

Genius is a grace. The true man of genius acts by movement or by impulsion.

It is frightening to see distinguished intellectuals fall under Robespierre’s ax. From a humane standpoint they can never be too much mourned, but divine justice is no respecter of mathematicians or scientists.

Providence – for whom everything, even an obstacle, is a means.