What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark.

When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then.

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.

All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature.

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.