[Unbelievers] think they have made great efforts to get at the truth when they have spent a few hours in reading some book out of Holy Scripture, and have questioned some cleric about the truths of the faith. After that, they boast that they have searched in books and among men in vain.

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

Good deeds, when concealed, are the most admirable.

In proportion as our own mind is enlarged we discover a greater number of men of originality. Commonplace people see no difference between one man and another.

Passion cannot be beautiful without excess; one either loves too much or not enough.

All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is therefore by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects! But what is this thought? How foolish it is!