The sweetness of glory is so great that, join it to what we will, even to death, we love it.
I take it as a matter not to be disputed, that if all knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. This seems proved by the quarrels and disputes caused by the disclosures which are occasionally made.
It is a dangerous experiment to call in gratitude as an ally to love. Love is a debt which inclination always pays, obligation never.
We feel neither extreme heat nor extreme cold; qualities that are in excess are so much at variance with our feelings that they are impalpable: we do not feel them, though we suffer from their effects.
Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.
The Church limits her sacramental services to the faithful. Christ gave Himself upon the cross a ransom for all.
If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others.
We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience.
There should be in eloquence that which is pleasing and that which is real; but that which is pleasing should itself be real.
Mediocrity makes the most of its native possessions.
Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
When we would think of God, how many things we find which turn us away from Him, and tempt us to think otherwise. All this is evil, yet it is innate.
There are people who lie simply for the sake of lying.
If man should commence by studying himself, he would see how impossible it is to go further.
The mind has its arrangement; it proceeds from principles to demonstrations. The heart has a different mode of proceeding.
Is it courage in a dying man to go, in weakness and in agony, to affront an almighty and eternal God?
Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.
The mind naturally makes progress, and the will naturally clings to objects; so that for want of right objects, it will attach itself to wrong ones.
The only shame is to have none.
The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it.