No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Book VII

There is no feeling so simple that it is not immediately complicated and distorted by introspection. Reflections on Literature and Morality

Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. Emma

If your ultimate and highest goal is to have life made easy and sociable, then never become involved with Christianity, shun it, because it wants the very opposite; it wants to make your life difficult and to do this by making you alone before God. No earnest person, therefore, wearies of tracking down the illusions, because insofar as he is a thinking person he fears most to be in error, however cozy the arrangement is, however good the company—and as a Christian he fears most to be lost without knowing it—however flattering, however splendid the surroundings and the company are. Works of Love