Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, and you who read this.

The sweetness of glory is so great that, join it to what we will, even to death, we love it.

Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it.

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.

The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it.

The gospel to me is simply irresistible.

Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.