"We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people."

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

"Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait."

"The self is hateful."

"Man is only a reed the weakest thing in nature but he is a thinking reed."

"All mankind's unhappiness derives from one thing: his inability to know how to remain in repose in one room."

"Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care."

"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."

"If a soldier or labourer complains of the hardship of his lot set him to do nothing."

"Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death."

"Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world."

"The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason."

"Men blaspheme what they do not know."

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

"The majority is the best way because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able."

"Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness."

"Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature."

"If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?"

"All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end."

"Let it not be said that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of the material is new."

"Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed."

"Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God."

"Faith is a gift of God."

"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."

"When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there now instead of then."

"As we are always preparing to be happy it is inevitable that we should never be so."

"To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher."

"To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man."

"It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason."

"A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us."

"Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity."

"Faith declares what the senses do not see but not the contrary of what they see."

"Vanity is but the surface."

"Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong."

"Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism."

"All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us; as in nature walls can kill us, and stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly."

"There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration."

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

"The infinite distance between the mind & the body is a symbol of the distance that is infinitely more, between the intellect & love, for love is divine."

"I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise."

"Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness."

"We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike."

"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't."

"There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature... and the thing which pleases us."

"If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world."

"Evil is easy, and has infinite forms."

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

"Imagination decides everything."

"Knowlege of God without knowledge of man's wretchedness leads to pride. Knowledge of man's wretchedness without knowledge of God leads to despair. Knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because by it we discover both God and our wretched state."

"The past and present are only our means the future is always our end. Thus we never really live but only hope to live."