Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.

If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are...

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much

It is not the length of years but a multitude of generations that makes things obscure. For truth is only perverted when men change.

The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct.

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

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin; none of the philosophical sects has admitted it; none therefore has spoken the truth

Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.

I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.

Kind words produce their images on men’s souls.

Nie betrieben die Menschen das Böse so umfassend und freudig wie aus religiöser Überzeugung.

To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the race is to a horse.

Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.

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...

When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the...

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.

Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in...

There is nothing we can now call our own, for what we call so is the effect of art; crimes are made by decrees of the senate, or by the votes of the people; and...

And if one loves me for my judgement, memory, he does not love me, for I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where, then, is this Ego, if it be neither in the body...

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

I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.

The charm of fame is so great, that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.

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

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

The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance, which is man’s true state. The sciences have two extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which...

Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

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

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”(Letter 16, 1657)

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

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.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.

People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.

Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back

Il n’est pas certain que tout soit incertain.(Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)

I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.

Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.

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.

Happiness is neither within us only, or without us; it is the union of ourselves with God.

The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.

The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.