The smallest bird cannot light upon the greatest tree without sending a shock to its most distant fiber.

The monuments of the nations are all protests against nothingness after death; so are statues and inscriptions; so is history.

A man is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive good fortune.

Repentance must be something more than mere remorse for sins: it comprehends a change of nature befitting heaven.

What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart.

It is more beautiful to trust in God. The beautiful in this world is all from his hand, declaring the perfection of taste; he is the author of all form; he clothes the lily, he colours the rose, he distils the dewdrop, he makes the music of nature; in a word, he organized us for this life, and imposed its conditions; and they are such guaranty to me that, trustful as a little child, I leave to him the organization of my Soul, and every arrangement for the life after death. I know he loves me.

A man thirty years old, I said to myself, should have his field of life all ploughed, and his planting well done; for after that it is summer time.