What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself?

Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up.

The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice.

We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience.

Good deeds, when concealed, are the most admirable.

The law required what it could not give. Grace gives that which it requires.

Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us. We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes. But being compelled to live under its foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, nor the last to keep it.