We shouldn't be worried by our past because we can only regret our mistakes. However, we should be worried even less by the future because it doesn't depend on us and maybe we will never reach it. The preent is the only time really ours...
However, the world is so restlss that we are never thinking about the present and the moment that we are living, but always about the one that we'll live.
In this world we are always busy living the future and never living now.
I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
It is right that what is just should be obeyed; it is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed. Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical. Justice without might is gainsaid, because there are always offenders; might without justice is condemned. We must then combine justice and might, and for this end make what is just strong, or what is strong just.
Justice is subject to dispute; might is easily recognised and is not disputed. So we cannot give might to justice, because might has gainsaid justice, and has declared that it is she herself who is just. And thus being unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.
Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare; it is the pleasure even of kings.
Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
In love, silence is of more avail than speech.
It is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone