By thought I embrace the universe.

Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.

Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.

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.

There is nothing that we can see on earth which does not either show the wretchedness of man or the mercy of God. One either sees the powerlessness of man without God, or the strength of man with God.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.