Continuous eloquence is tedious.

All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly.

I have spent much time in the study of the abstract sciences; but the paucity of persons with whom you can communicate on such subjects disgusted me with them. When I began to study man, I saw that these abstract sciences are not suited to him, and that in diving into them, I wandered farther from my real object than those who knew them not, and I forgave them for not having attended to these things. I expected then, however, that I should find some companions in the study of man, since it was so specifically a duty. I was in error. There are fewer students of man than of geometry.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

Things are always at their best in their beginning.