The mind has its arrangement; it proceeds from principles to demonstrations. The heart has a different mode of proceeding.

If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.

All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.

If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the saints and God.

The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

There are plenty of maxims in the world; all that remains is to apply them.

Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.