Furthermore, what profit was it to me that I, rascally slave of selfish ambitions that I was, read and understood by myself as many books as I could get concerning the so-called liberal arts?...I had turned my back to the light and my face to the things it illuminated, and so no light played upon my own face, or on the eyes that perceived them.

Ignorance itself is without a doubt a sin for those who do not wish to understand; for those who, however, cannot understand, it is the punishment of sin.

The measure of charity may be taken from the want of desires. As desires diminish in the soul, charity increases in it; and when it no longer feels any desire, then it possesses perfect charity.

A man may lose the good things of this life against his will; but if he loses the eternal blessings, he does so with his own consent.

Your best servant is the person who does not attend so much to hearing what he himself wants as to willing what he has heard from you.

Without God, man cannot, and without man, God will not.

Poetry is the Devil's wine.