Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.

Happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as united to him.

We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship.

The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim.

The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.

Those we call the ancients were really new in everything.

It is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him. Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both.