Human wisdom remains always one and the same although applied to the most diverse objects and it is no more changed by their diversity than the sunshine is changed by the variety of objects which it illuminates.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Wonder is the first of all the passions.
Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
Reason is nothing without imagination.
The principal effect of the passions is that they incite and persuade the mind to will the events for which they prepared the body.
Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
Every man is indeed bound to do what he can to promote the good of others, and a man who is of no use to anyone is strictly worthless.
For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.
Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it.
Intuition is the undoubting conception of a pure and attentive mind, which arises from the light of reason alone, and is more certain than deduction.
For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than th eincreasing discovery of my own ignorance.
The only secure knowledge is that I exist.
At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.
Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company.
I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
Everything is self-evident.
Intuitive knowledge is an illumination of the soul, whereby it beholds in the light of God those things which it pleases Him to reveal to us by a direct impression of divine clearness.