The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety.

We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six persons immediately around us is enough to amuse and satisfy us.

Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength.

How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies.

Education produces natural intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education.

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

Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.