You really don't even own the present moment, for even this belongs to God.

When kings interfere in matters of religion, they enslave instead of protecting it.

There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.

The blood of a nation ought never to be shed except for its own preservation in the utmost extremity.

I believe that we are conforming to the divine order and the will of Providence when we are doing even indifferent things that belong to our condition.

The passion of acquiring riches in order to support a vain expense corrupts the purest souls.

On this earth all is temptation. Crosses tempt us by irritating our pride, and prosperity by flattering it. Our life is a continual combat, but one in which Jesus Christ fights for us. We must pass on unmoved, while temptations rage around us, as the traveler, overtaken by a storm, simply wraps his cloak more closely about him, and pushes on more vigorously toward his destined home.