To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.

When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.

The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries.

We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy.

To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.

Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.

Law, without force, is impotent.