One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within… - Blaise Pascal

The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these twin vices, not by using one to expel the other according to worldly wisdom, but by expelling both through the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches the righteous, whom it exalts, even to participation in divinity itself, that in this sublime state they still bear the source of all corruption, which exposes them throughout their lives to error, misery, death and sin; and it cries out to the most ungodly that they are capable of the grace of their redeemer. Thus, making those whom it justifies tremble and consoling those whom it condemns, it so nicely tempers fear with hope through this dual capacity, common to all men, for grace and sin, that it causes infinitely more dejection than mere reason, but without despair, and infinitely more exaltation than natural pride, but without puffing us up.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.

I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.