Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment.

One of the greatest artifices the devil uses to engage men in vice and debauchery, is to fasten names of contempt on certain virtues, and thus fill weak souls with a foolish fear of passing for scrupulous, should they desire to put them in practice.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation.

It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe.

It is the conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace.