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

Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God.

Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is.

We do not weary of eating and sleeping every day, for hunger and sleepiness recur. Without that we should weary of them. So, without the hunger for spiritual things, we weary of them. Hunger after righteousness--the eighth beatitude.

The war existing between the senses and reason.

All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.

Who dispenses reputation? Who makes us respect and revere persons, works, laws, the great? Who but this faculty of imagination? All the riches of the earth are inadequate without its approval.