The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety.

The exterior must be joined to the interior to obtain anything from God, that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, and soon, in order that proud man, who would not submit himself to God, may be now subject to the creature.

Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.

On the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they are exposed to at Court or at war, from which so many quarrels, passions, risky, often ill-conceived actions and so on are born, I have often said that man's unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room.

What reason have atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that what has been, should be again? Is it more difficult to come into being than to return to it.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

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