In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties.

Only evil grows of itself, while for goodness we want effort and courage.

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism; reason and justice presuppose, at their origin, emotion.

Our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be.

Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.

[I]t is truth alone-scientific, established, proved, and rational truth-which is capable of satisfying nowadays the awakened minds of all classes. We may still say perhaps, 'faith governs the world,'-but the faith of the present is no longer in revelation or in the priest-it is in reason and in science.

Men don't achieve truth because they lack humility and love of truth. They won't criticize their own beliefs. Truth would overwhelm them.