If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God

Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.

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.

It is a dangerous experiment to call in gratitude as an ally to love. Love is a debt which inclination always pays, obligation never.

Mutual cheating is the foundation of society.

Lord, help me to do great things as though they were little, since I do them with your power; And little things as though they were great, since I do them in your name!

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place.