It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.

Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

Imagination decides everything.

Light tomorrow with today!

You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.

The beautiful seems right by force of beauty and the feeble wrong because of weakness.

If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love's sake only.

Who so loves believes the impossible.

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

For tis not in mere death that men die most.

The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 'Let no one be called happy till his death;' to which I would add, 'Let no one, till his death, be called unhappy.'

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?

If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.

To good and true love fear is forever affixed.

Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.

I place no hope in my strength, nor in my works: but all my confidence is in God my protector, who never abandons those who have put all their hope and thought in him.

It is my feeling that Time ripens all things; with Time all things are revealed; Time is the father of truth.

Misery is the company of lawsuits.

I won't undertake war until I have tried all the arts and means of peace.

If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks.