“My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return.”

The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.

My sorrow is my castle.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

It is very important in life to know when your cue comes.

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.

People understand me so poorly that they don’t even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.

It is impossible to exist without passion.

The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.

Boredom is the root of all evil.

Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.

The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.

My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had.

What labels me, negates me.

In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy.

Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.

The sea – this truth must be confessed – has no generosity. No display of manly qualities – courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness – has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power.

For out of old fields, as men saith, Cometh all this new corn from year to year; And out of old books, in good faith, Cometh all this new science that men learn.

Just in the ratio knowledge increases, faith decreases.

We need god to prosper those without him will not.

I see heaven’s glories shine and faith shines equal.

You call for faith: I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, If faith o’ercomes doubt.

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.