It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe.

We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.

Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures.

Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off.

Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.

We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy.

If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. [So] you must wager. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is.