The best use one can make of his mind is to distrust it.

There are some people who think that they should be always mourning, that they should put a continual constraint upon themselves, and feel a disgust for those amusements to which they are obliged to submit. For my own part, I confess that I know not how to conform myself to these rigid notions. I prefer something more simple, which I also think would be more pleasing to God.

Exactness and neatness in moderation is a virtue, but carried to extremes narrows the mind.

There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us with God; we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid everything that tends to make us lose it.

All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.

Fear is like the strong medicine used to fight serious diseases; it purges, but it also alters your temperament and wears out the body organs. A person who is driven by fear will always be the weaker for it

There is no real elevation of mind in a contempt of little things; it is, on the contrary, from too narrow views that we consider those things of little importance which have in fact such extensive consequences.