If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the saints and God.

The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.

All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is therefore by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects! But what is this thought? How foolish it is!

Happiness is neither within us, nor without us. It is in the union of ourselves with God.

Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.

Those we call the ancients were really new in everything.

It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.