St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.

If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them.

It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.

...for the truth is always older than all the opinions men have held regarding it; and one should be ignoring the nature of truth if we imagined that the truth began at the time it came to be known.