“Every act of courage is the work of an unbalanced man. Animals, normal by definition, are always cowardly except when they know themselves to be stronger, which is cowardice itself.”

“Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage.”

“All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.”

“In every remodelling of the present, the existing condition of things must be supplanted by a new one. Now every variety of circumstances in which men find themselves, every object which surrounds them, communicates a definite form and impress to their internal nature. This form is not such that it can change and adapt itself to any other a man may choose to receive; and the end is foiled, while the power is destroyed, when we attempt to impose upon that which is already stamped in the soul a form which disagrees with it.”

“Excessive caution destroys the soul and the heart, because living is an act of courage, and an act of courage is always an act of love.”

“One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”

“Man is…a thinking erratum, that's what he is. Every season of life is an edition that corrects the one before and which will also be corrected itself until the definitive edition, which the publisher gives to the worms gratis.”

“We must be neither cowardly nor rash but courageous.”

“The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters.”

“…there is never a "right moment" for the revolutionary act - the act is always, by definition, "premature."”