La vraie e loquence se moque de l’e loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality.
The heart has its reasons, which Reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which feels God, and not Reason. This, then, is perfect faith: God felt in the heart.
Losses are comparative; imagination only makes them of any moment.
If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that passes all understanding.
Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would amount to the same.
We make an idol of truth itself, for truth apart from charity is not God, but his image and an idol that we must not love or worship.
Each man is everything to himself, for with his death everything is dead for him. That is why each of us thinks he is everything to everyone. We must not judge nature by ourselves, but by its own standards.
Nature has perfections, in order to show that she is the image of God; and defects, to show that she is only his image.
If ignorance were bliss, he’d be a blister.
All the good maxims which are in the world fail when applied to one’s self.
Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.
I can readily conceive of a man without hands or feet; and I could conceive of him without a head, if experience had not taught me that by this he thinks, Thought then, is the essence of man, and without this we cannot conceive of him.
A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us.
I can approve of those only who seek in tears for happiness.
There are vices which have no hold upon us, but in connection with others; and which, when you cut down the trunk, fall like the branches.
Voluptuousness, like justice, is blind, but that is the only resemblance between them.
Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.
The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
Piety is different from superstition. To carry piety to the extent of superstition is to destroy it. The heretics reproach us with this superstitious submission. It is doing what they reproach us with.
Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures.