The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.

Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn't have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.

A man would create another man if one did not already exist, but a woman might live an eternity without even thinking of reproducing her own sex.

Everything that we encounter leaves traces behind. Everything contributes imperceptibly to our education

Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

Woe to falsehood! it affords no relief to the breast, like truth; it gives us no comfort, pains him who forges it, and like an arrow directed by a god flies back and wounds the archer.