“But God laughs at the prayers we make to him to avert public misfortunes, when we do not oppose what is being done to bring them about.”

— Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, History of Variations in the Protestant Churches (1688), Book IV

About Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

1627 – 1704

French bishop and court preacher under Louis XIV.

“The greatest weakness of all weaknesses is to fear too much to appear weak.”

“The world itself makes you sick of the world.”

“Faith is an adherence of the heart to eternal truth.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”