 Evil is easy, and has infinite forms. |
| Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death. |
| Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them. |
| We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves. |
| He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright. |
| The heart has reasons that reason cannot know. |
| In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious. |
| Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists. |
| Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. |
| If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy. |
| The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. |
| 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. |
| Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself. |
| Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong. |
| All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling. |
| I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room. |
| I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world. |
| The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter. |
| We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart. |
| People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others. |
