How comes it that a cripple does not offend us, but a fool does? Because a cripple recognizes that we walk straight, whereas a fool declares that it is we who are silly; if it were not so, we should feel pity and not anger.

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.

We never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always arranging to be happy, it must be that we never are so.

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.

We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience.

Reverend Fathers, my letters did not usually follow each other at such close intervals, nor were they so long.... This one would not be so long had I but the leisure to make it shorter.

Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.