Silence is the greatest persecution; never do the saints keep themselves silent.

All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

Human life is thus only an endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy.

Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.

The Fall is an offense to human reason, but once accepted, it makes perfect sense of the human condition.