Man is a sum of the world, an abridged summary; the world is the revelation of man, a projection of him.
I learned to be gentle when I learned that the life of each of us, and peoples, and humanity exists only by the will of good, so we don't have to worry about anything but today's problems.
God's impotence is infinite.
God often grants our desires to punish us.
The future is hidden even from those who fulfill it.
Finally, old prejudices are less harmful than new ones: being old, they have softened and become almost harmless.
In love, men need shapes and colors; men need images. While women - only by sensations. They love better than we: they are blind. If they had eyes, how could they explain their choice?
In any well-ordered state, wealth is a sacred thing, but in a democratic state, it is the only sacred thing.
In the darkness that surrounds us, the scholar bangs his forehead against the wall, while the ignorant sits quietly in the middle of the room.
Coarse and mediocre thinkers derive from reading only pallid and insignificant pleasure. The theatre, on the contrary, illustrates everything, leaving nothing to the imagination: this is why it fully satisfies the majority.
Democracy governs badly, instead it does little.
Virtuous women age faster.
If miracles existed, they would cease to be miracles: a miracle is a miracle only because it does not actually happen.
A woman is honest when she doesn't lie for no reason.
A woman has to choose: with a man whom other women love, she will never be at peace, with a man whom other women do not love, she will never be happy.
Journalism is the religion of modern societies, and this is progress. Pastors are not bound to believe, and neither is the flock.
The law, which embodies in itself the sublime idea of equal rights, equally forbids all men, both rich and poor, to sleep under a bridge and steal bread.
The game is a god. He has his followers and saints who love him for who he is and not what he promises, worshiping him while he attacks them. If the game robs them too cruelly, they don't blame the game, they blame themselves.
Irony - the last stage of disappointment.
True love lives by desire and feeds on lies. We only really love what we don't know.
Each of us, from his point of view, is the creative center of the world. This is a universal illusion. Not one of the street sweepers is exempt from this illusion. It is imposed on him through his own eyes, which, looking at the heavenly vault above his head, place him exactly in the center of heaven and earth.
It is better to understand a little than to get it wrong.
We call skeptics those to whom our illusions are foreign, without asking ourselves whether they do not also have illusions of their own.
Science is flawless, but scientists are often wrong.
Don't give your cards to anyone, or you'll never see them again. Only those books that I have borrowed from others to read remain in my library.
We have to forgive ourselves a lot in order to learn to forgive others a lot.
They repent, but they do not blaspheme.
It is equally difficult for a poet, a senator, and a cobbler to admit that they are not the ultimate goal of the universe and the meaning of all things.
Reasonable arguments have yet to convince anyone.
Sooner or later, curiosity becomes a sin, which is why the devil is always on the side of scientists.