My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure.

He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life.

What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.

The beginning of faith is the beginning of fruitfulness; but the beginning of unbelief, however glittering, is empty.

It is natural to man to regard himself as the object of the creation, and to think of all things in relation to himself, and the degree in which they can serve and be useful to him.

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.

I do not speak of what I cannot praise.