Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back
Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.
As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.
Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.
If we all told what we know of one another there would not be four friends in the world
Losses are comparative only imagination makes them of any moment.
Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.
Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth give him too much, the same.
I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.
Men blaspheme what they do not know.
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 know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.
Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.
That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.