Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.
We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves we desire to live an imaginary life in the minds of others and for this purpose we endeavor to shine.
Lust and force are the source of all our actions lust causes voluntary actions force involuntary ones.
Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.
I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
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.
The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things it is feeble if it cannot realize that.
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.
Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth give him too much, the same.
We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back
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.
Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.
That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.
Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.