The great majority of men are but tangled skeins, imperfect keyboards, so many specimens of restless or stagnant chaos--and what makes their situation almost hopeless is the fact that they take pleasure in it. There is no curing a sick man who believes himself in health.

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

Order is man's greatest need, and his true well-being.

Happiness has no limits, because God has neither bottom nor bounds, and because happiness is nothing but the conquest of God through love.

Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary - they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.

Sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy.

We are always making God our accomplice, that so we may legalize our own iniquities. Every successful massacre is consecrated by a Te Deum, and the clergy have never been wanting in benedictions for any victorious enormity.