Without the knowledge of our wretchedness, the knowledge of God creates pride. With it, the knowledge of God creates despair. The knowledge of Christ offers a third way, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.
Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere.
Those we call the ancients were really new in everything.
There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation.
Christian piety annihilates the egoism of the heart; worldly politeness veils and represses it.
True eloquence scorns eloquence.
Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.
Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us. We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes. But being compelled to live under its foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, nor the last to keep it.
Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery in Him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair.
Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.
It is superstitious to put one’s hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.
Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.
When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true.
Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.
To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity. The greatness of the human soul is shown by knowing how to keep within proper bounds. There are two equally dangerous extremes- to shut reason out, and not to let nothing in.
Not to be mad is another form of madness.
Jesus was in a garden, not of delight as the first Adam, in which he destroyed himself and the whole human race, but in one of agony, in which he saved himself and the whole human race.
Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness.
Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble.
The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its own measure, as when talking of God.