Law, without force, is impotent.
Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.
We like to be deceived.
What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.
Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness.
We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.
The war existing between the senses and reason.
The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries.
We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them.
The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live.
We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers.
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
All mankind’s troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly.
Things are always at their best in their beginning.
If god does not exist, one loses nothing by believing in him anyway, while if he does exist, one stands to lose everything by not believing.
Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood.
We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happiness in this esteem.
Things have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing.
Reason is the slow and torturous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it.