If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?

Man's grandeur is that he knows himself to be miserable.

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.

We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness.

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.