I cannot judge my work while I am doing it. I have to do as painters do, stand back and view it from a distance, but not too great a distance. How great? Guess.

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.

Nothing is so important to man as his own state; nothing is so formidable to him as eternity. And thus it is unnatural that thereshould be men indifferent to the loss of their existence and to the perils of everlasting suffering.

Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny.

The pagans do not know God, and love only the earth. The Jews know the true God, and love only the earth. The Christians know the true God, and do not love the earth.

The statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material.

The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.