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

Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure.

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

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

Only three things are necessary to make life happy: the blessing of God, books , and a friend.

There exists an infinite, eternal Being, subsisting of himself, who is one without being alone; for he finds in his own essence relations whence, with the necessary movement of his life, results the absolute plenitude of his perfection and his happiness. A Being unique and complete, God suffices to himself.

The Church had the words reason and liberty on her lips when the inalienable rights of the human race were threatened with shipwreck.