No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God inclines his heart; and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.

Nothing is surer than that the people will be weak.

Nobody is publicly accepted as an expert on poetry unless he displays the sign of poet, mathematician, etc., but universal men want no sign and make hardly any distinction between the crafts of poet and embroiderer. Universal men are not called poets or mathematicians, etc. But they are all these things and judges of them too. No one could guess what they are, and they will talk about whatever was being talked about when they came in. One quality is not more noticeable in them than another, unless it becomes necessary to put it into practice, and then we remember it.

The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live.

(Man,) the glory and the scandal of the universe.