Reverend Fathers, My Letters Did Not Usually

Man Is Full Of Desires: He Loves Only Those Who Can Satisfy Them All. "this Man Is A Good Mathematician," Someone Will Say. But I Have No Concern For Mathematics; He Would Take Me For A Proposition. "that One Is A Good Soldier." He Would Take Me For A Besieged Town. I Need, That Is To Say, A Decent Man Who Can Accommodate Himself To All My Desires In A General Sort Of Way.

There Is Enough Light For Those Who Only Desire To See, And Enough Obscurity For Those Who Have A Contrary Disposition

I Do Not Admire A Virtue Like Valour When It Is Pushed To Excess, If I Do Not See At The Same Time The Excess Of The Opposite Virtue, As One Does In Epaminondas, Who Displayed Extreme Valour And Extreme Benevolence. For Otherwise It Is Not An Ascent, But A Fall. We Do Not Display Our Greatness By Placing Ourselves At One Extremity, But Rather By Being At Both At The Same Time, And Filling Up The Whole Of The Space Between Them.

Man Is But A Reed, The Most Feeble Thing In Nature, But He Is A Thinking Reed.

A Man Does Not Show His Greatness By Being At One Extremity, But Rather By Touching Both At Once.