Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter the heart through the understanding, but the understanding through the heart.

Let us now speak according to natural lights. If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible. . . . We are then incapable of knowing of either what He is or if He is. . . .

Man is so great that his greatness appears even in the consciousness of his misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is true that it is misery indeed to know one's self to be miserable; but then it is greatness also. In this way, all man's miseries go to prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a mighty potentate, of a dethroned monarch.

Let us weigh the gain and the loss, in wagering that God is. Consider these alternatives: if you win, you win all, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate, then, to wager that he is.

It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.