A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us.

Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.

Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.

We must make good people wish that the Christian faith were true, and then show that it is.

Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.

Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.

Description of man: dependence, longing for independence, need.