Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.

Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.

Is it courage in a dying man to go, in weakness and in agony, to affront an almighty and eternal God?

Human life is thus only an endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy.

Something incomprehensible is not for that reason less real.

Who dispenses reputation? Who makes us respect and revere persons, works, laws, the great? Who but this faculty of imagination? All the riches of the earth are inadequate without its approval.

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.