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

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

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

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.

The universe shows us the life of God, or rather it is in itself the life of God. We behold in it his permanent action, the scene upon which his power is exercised, and in which all his attributes are reflected. God is not out of the universe any more than the universe is out of God. God is the principle, the universe is the consequence, but a necessary consequence, without which the principle would be inert, unfruitful, impossible to conceive.

Duty is the grandest of ideas, because it implies the idea of God, of the soul, of liberty, of responsibility, of immortality.

Since God is the end of man, since he has created us to be perfect and happy in him, it is manifest that if the designs of creation have not here below been entirely frustrated, there should be found men who tend to their end in seeking and loving God. And nevertheless, because of human liberty, there should also be found other men who neglect God, their principle and their end, and yield to the seduction of created things. Such indeed is the spectacle which the history of the world unceasingly presents to us.