The gist is that good and evil are foreordained. What is foreordained comes necessarily to be after a prior act of divine volition...Rather, everything small and large is written and comes to be in a known and expected measure.

Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere

When one does not love too much, one does not love enough.

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.

There are two equally dangerous extremes-to shut reason out, and to let nothing else in.

Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us. We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes. But being compelled to live under its foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, nor the last to keep 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.