The captain of a ship is not chosen from those of the passengers who comes from the best family.

The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its own measure, as when talking of God.

Knowledge has two extremes. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great minds, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same natural ignorance from which they set out; this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.

True eloquence makes light of eloquence. True morality makes light of morality.

All that tends not to charity is figurative. The sole aim of the Scripture is charity.

It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.

The parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole.