If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others.

The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim.

...for the truth is always older than all the opinions men have held regarding it; and one should be ignoring the nature of truth if we imagined that the truth began at the time it came to be known.

Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.

You gave me health that I might serve you; and so often I failed to use my good health in your service. Now you send me sickness in order to correct me Grant that, having ignored the things of spirit when my body was vigorous, I may now enjoy spiritual sweetness while my body groans with pain.

A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us.

The man who knows God but does not know his own misery, becomes proud. The man who knows his own misery but does not know God, ends in despair...the knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course because in him we find both God and our own misery. Jesus Christ is therefore a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.