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

According to the doctrine of chance, you ought to put yourself to the trouble of searching for the truth; for if you die without worshiping the True Cause, you are lost. "But," say you, "if He had wished me to worship Him, He would have left me signs of His will." He has done so; but you neglect them. Seek them, therefore; it is well worth it.

What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

It is certain that the soul is either mortal or immortal. The decision of this question must make a total difference in the principles of morals. Yet philosophers have arranged their moral system entirely independent of this. What an extraordinary blindness!

It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe.

There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present.