We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.

Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point.

Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself, which it pays him to regulate.

To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the race is to a horse.

All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

How I hate this folly of not believing in the Eucharist, etc.! If the gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty is there?