Frases de Pierre Nicole

“O historiador é um mentiroso de boa fé.”

“O coração é em geral a fonte das ilusões do espírito.”

“A maior parte dos erros dos homens provém mais do fato de eles raciocinarem a partir de falsos princípios do que raciocinarem mal de acordo com os seus próprios princípios.”

“Não é a injustiça em si mesmo que nos fere, é o sermos vítimas dela.”

“A eternidade rompe qualquer medida e destrói qualquer comparação.”

“Não há coisa mais útil do que suprimir as queixas e afogar os sentimentos.”

“Não convém subtilizar em matéria de gratidão, porque esta se evapora quando a subtilizamos.”

“O homem teme tudo, por ser mortal; e deseja tudo, como se fosse imortal.”

“Jesus … never laughed. Nothing has ever equaled the seriousness of his life; it is clear that pleasure, recreation, anything that could divert the mind, had no part in it. The life of Jesus was utterly taut, wholly caught up in God and in the woes of men, and he gave to nature only what he could not have refused it without destroying it.”

“Sins which would terrify us if they were peculiar to ourselves alone cease to frighten us when they are shared. The sinner sleeps soundly when he finds himself surrounded by a multitude, as though God were obliged to spare him.”

“Not only do we have no real right to the things of the world, because belonging always essentially to God they can never belong to creatures; but we are also limited by the laws of God in the use of those possessions; for it must not be imagined that God gives them to us so that we may dispose of them as we wish. He is too just to have made such an unequal distribution. These goods being the means destined by his Providence for the subsistence of men, he gives to some more than they need only so that they may distribute it to others. A rich man, in so far as he is rich, is thus no more than steward of God's good things.”