[Unbelievers] think they have made great efforts to get at the truth when they have spent a few hours in reading some book out of Holy Scripture, and have questioned some cleric about the truths of the faith. After that, they boast that they have searched in books and among men in vain.

When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. ...such community of intellect that we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love.

Those we call the ancients were really new in everything.

Christian piety annihilates the egoism of the heart; worldly politeness veils and represses it.

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.

What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.

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