 Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. |
| In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate. |
| I think; therefore I am. |
| Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow. |
| Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has. |
| A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed. |
| When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable. |
| The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt. |
| Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare. |
| Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. |
| Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. |
| The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once. |
| It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived. |
| Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it. |
| The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. |
| I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error. |
| An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out? |
| The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge. |
| Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries. |
| Everything is self-evident. |
