Quote collection
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"If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?"
"Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, and you who read this."
"Il n'y a que deux sortes d'hommes: les uns justes, qui se croient pe cheurs; les autres pe cheurs, qui se croient justes. There are only two types of people: the virtuous who believe themselves to be sinners and the sinners who believe themselves to be virtuous."
"There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him."
"The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able."
"We like to be deceived."
"The heart has arguments with which the logic of mind is not aquainted."
"God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind."
"Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself, which it pays him to regulate."
"Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless."
"God only pours out his light into the mind after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it."
"If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others."
"Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience."
"What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire."
"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and naturally loves itself; and it gives itself to one or the other, and hardens itself against one or the other, as it chooses...it is the heart that feels God, not the reason; this is faith."
"Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man."
"We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it."
"Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off."
"Those who are clever in imagination are far more pleased with themselves than prudent men could reasonably be."
"Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established."