A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.

For my own part, I am apt to join in the opinion with those who believe that all the regions of Nature swarm with spirits, and that we have multitudes of spectators on all our actions when we think ourselves most alone.

As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.

Religion contracts the circle of our pleasures, but leaves it wide enough for her votaries to expatiate in.

That courage which arises from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason.

Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable.

With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhaustible sources of perfection. We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart to conceive the glory that will be always in reserve for it.