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

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

If a man loves a woman for her beauty, does he love her? No; for the smallpox, which destroys her beauty without killing her, causes his love to cease. And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love me? No; for I can lose these qualities without ceasing to be.

Our natures lie in motion, without which we die.

If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

There is a God-shaped vacuum in every heart.

What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?