Faith creates the virtues in which it believes.

We like so much to hear people talk of us and of our motives, that we are charmed even when they abuse us.

... truth ... carries authority with it; while falsehood and lies skulk under a load of words, without having the power of persuasion; the more they attempt to show themselves, the more they are entangled.

When I step into this library, I cannot understand why I ever step out of it.

There is nobody who is not dangerous for someone.

long journeys are strange things: if we were always to continue in the same mind we are in at the end of a journey, we should never stir from the place we were then in: but Providence in kindness to us causes us to forget it. It is much the same with lying-in women. Heaven permits this forgetfulness that the world may be peopled, and that folks may take journeys to Provence.

It is the fine rain that soaks us through.