Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

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.