All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms.

The philosophers talk to you about the dignity of man, and they tempt you to pride, or they talk to you about the misery of man, and they tempt you to despair.

The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live.

Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up.

We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience.

The imagination disposes of everything. It creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are the whole of the world.

La vraie e loquence se moque de l'e loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality.