Only yesterday I was full of worldly fancies, although religion had already some share in my thoughts: glory was still my daydream. Today my hopes are higher, and I covet here below nothing but obscurity and peace.

After speech, silence is the greatest power in the world.

Christianity is not a law of bondage; and if it respect the hand of God which sometimes raises up tyrants, it draws up where obedience degenerates into guilty cowardice.

Nothing is achieved without solitude.

Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other, on the contrary they are twin sisters.

Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.

Man forms himself in his own interior, and nowhere else.