I turn my gaze inward. I fix it there and keep it busy. I look inside myself. I continually observe myself.

Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.

Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not.

A man must live in the world and make the best of it, such as it is.

The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, or to dispute, forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor. From obedience and submission spring all other virtues, as all sin does from self-opinion.

We endeavor more that men should speak of us, than how and what they speak, and it sufficeth us that our name run in men's mouths, in what manner soever. It stemma that to be known is in some sort to have life and continuance in other men's keeping.

Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himselfbe raised and uplifted by purely celestial means.