We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.
Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.
Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.
Our natures lie in motion, without which we die.
The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality.
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.
All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ, they all aim at the same end.
The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.
Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.
Look somewhere else for someone who can follow you in your researches about numbers. For my part, I confess that they are far beyond me, and I am competent only to admire them.
By thought I embrace the universe.
Man’s sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.
God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.
Amusement that is excessive and followed only for its own sake, allures and deceives us.
It is man’s natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.
The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety.
The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog.
Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.