Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself.

Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble.

The art of subversion, of revolution, is to dislodge established customs by probing down to their origins in order to show how they lack authority and justice.

Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth.

Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.

Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, and you who read this.

Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity?