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Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.
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Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.
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Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.
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Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.
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Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
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The God of the infinite is the God of the infinitesimal.
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Without the knowledge of our wretchedness, the knowledge of God creates pride. With it, the knowledge of God creates despair. The knowledge of Christ offers a third way, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.
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The eternal Being is forever if he is at all.
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To speak freely of mathematics, I find it the highest exercise of the spirit; but at the same time I know that it is so useless that I make little distinction between a man who is only a mathematician and a common artisan. Also, I call it the most beautiful profession in the world; but it is only a profession.
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Not to be mad is another form of madness.
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Quand on voit le style naturel, on est tout e tonne et ravi, car on s'attendait de voir un auteur, et on trouve un homme. When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man.
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Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.
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It is not shameful for a man to succumb to pain and it is shameful to succumb to pleasure.
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Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday. You are today where the thoughts of yesterday have brought you and you will be tomorrow where the thoughts of today take you.
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Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.
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All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that man cannot sit still in a room.
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Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves.
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Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up.
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In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
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All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.
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The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
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To understand is to forgive.
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True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
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Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.