We are comforted by any trifle because any trifle can throw us into desolation.
I cannot excuse Descartes: he would, in his philosophy, want to end it without God, but that did not prevent him from using God to give the world the first impulse, which set it in motion, after who no longer needed Him.
Ignorance sometimes has an advantage over the cultured man in that he does not live with the ideas of the dead.
Inconsistency, boredom, restlessness - these are the conditions of human existence.
It is not good to be too free. It's not good to not need anything.
Place a philosopher on a broad board over a precipice, and however much reason assures him that no danger befalls him, imagination will still triumph.
Why is my knowledge limited? Why am I short? Why does life on earth last a hundred, and not a thousand years? Why did nature stop at this figure and not at another, although they are infinite in number and there is no reason why this particular one should be chosen?
Why do people prefer the majority? Because he's right? No, because she's strong.
Ignorant as I am of morals, the science of external things does not comfort me in moments of sorrow, while the science of morals comforts me in my ignorance of external things.
Nature repeats itself: the seed planted in rich soil bears fruit; the thought planted in a receptive mind bears fruit; the numbers repeat the space, although they are very different from it.
Let it not be said that I did not say anything new: the novelty lies in the arrangement of the material. When playing leapsa, one and the same ball is used, but one hits better than the other
To say that man has no gain from lying - that does not mean. that he is telling the truth: he is simply lying for the sake of lying.
Rivers are roads that move by themselves and take us where we want to go.
With what ease and self-satisfaction does a man do evil, when he is convinced that he is doing good!
How many powers of the world do not even suspect that I exist!
Conscience is the best moral book we have; it is good to look through it as often as possible.
Justice and truth are two edges so fine that our instruments are too crude to measure them accurately. Touching them, they flatter themselves and lean on the banalities around them, that is, on lies rather than truth.
A man's virtue is judged not by his enthusiastic starts, but by his everyday deeds.
Only when we have finished a work, it is clear to us what we should have started it with.
He who has chosen truth as his guide, and duty as his goal, can trust with courage in Providence.
Love has no age, it is always new.
Do you want people to believe in your virtues? Don't brag about them!
Man is neither angel nor beast, and the more he pretends to be an angel, the more he resembles a beast.
Man is not naturally capable of walking in one direction: when he goes forward, when he turns back.
Man is sometimes divided between reason and passions.
Man's sensitivity to trifles and insensitivity to the most important things, is it not a sign of monstrous perversity?
The more enlightened people are, the more obvious human greatness and insignificance are to them.
The smarter man is, the more he finds in those with whom he comes into contact something similar to himself. To the mediocre man, all men are the same.
What are our innate concepts, if not concepts we have become accustomed to? Do not children assimilate them from their parents, as animals do with the art of hunting?
To be innocent is to have no guilt, and to be charitable is to overcome your own negative feelings and intentions.