The multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included. Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.

I have tried sedulously not to laugh at the acts of man, nor to lament them, nor to detest them, but to understand them.

He who has a true idea, knows at that same time that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt concerning the truth of the thing.

The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.