I cannot judge my work while I am doing it. I have to do as painters do, stand back and view it from a distance, but not too great a distance. How great? Guess.

Who confers reputation? who gives respect and veneration to persons, to books, to great men? Who but Opinion? How utterly insufficient are all the riches of the world without her approbation!

Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood.

We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.

Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.

Must we kill to prevent there being any wicked? This is to make both parties wicked instead of one.

The man who knows God but does not know his own misery, becomes proud. The man who knows his own misery but does not know God, ends in despair...the knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course because in him we find both God and our own misery. Jesus Christ is therefore a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.