Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes it fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.

Men blaspheme what they do not know.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.

There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

The gospel to me is simply irresistible.

You always admire what you really don't understand.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.

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?

The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.

Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.

The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.