Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.
Most people are far too much occupied with themselves to be malicious.
I do not give alms; I am not poor enough for that.
From whatever you wish to know and measure you must take your leave, at least for a time. Only when you have left the town can yousee how high its towers rise above the houses.
Never to talk about oneself is a very refined form of hypocrisy.
Sins are indispensable to every society organized on an ecclesiastical basis; they are the only reliable weapons of power; the priest lives upon sins; it is necessary to him that there be sinning.