One is always wrong to open a conversation with the devil, for, however he goes about it, he always insists upon having the last word.

Other people’s appetites easily appear excessive when one doesn’t share them.

The most decisive actions of our life—I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future—are, more often than not, unconsidered.

Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up.

If one could recover the uncompromising spirit of one’s youth, one’s greatest indignation would be for what one has become.

Are you then unable to recognize a sob unless it has the same sound as yours?

Christianity, above all, consoles; but there are naturally happy souls who do not need consolation. Consequently Christianity begins by making such souls unhappy, for otherwise it would have no power over them.

The difficulty comes from this, that Christianity (Christian orthodoxy) is exclusive and that belief in its truth excludes belief in any other truth. It does not absorb; it repulses.

Too chaste an adolescence makes for a dissolute old age. It is doubtless easier to give up something one has known than something one imagines.

Chastity more rarely follows fear, or a resolution, or a vow, than it is the mere effect of lack of appetite and, sometimes even, of distaste.