Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would itself be venerable enough.
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.
Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us.
A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.
Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.
The multitude which does not reduce itself to unity is confusion.
Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
To call a king “Prince” is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.
The pagans do not know God, and love only the earth. The Jews know the true God, and love only the earth. The Christians know the true God, and do not love the earth.
Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject.
Two similar faces, neither of which alone causes laughter, use laughter when they are together, by their resemblance.
Flies are so mighty that they win battles, paralyse our minds, eat up our bodies.
He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide.
Each one is all in all to himself; for being dead, all is dead to him.
If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.
We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.
If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them.