How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement!

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

I am in the utmost perplexity, yand have wished a hundred times, that if there is a A God, nature would manifest him without ambiguity, and that if there is not, every imaginary sign of his existence might vanish : in short, let nature speak distinctly, or be totally silent, and I shall know what course to take.

Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipe below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail.

Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to go off and amuse himself conquering the world. Such a pastime was all right for Augustus and Alexander; they were young men, not easily held in check, but Caesar ought to have been more mature.

Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.

The gist is that good and evil are foreordained. What is foreordained comes necessarily to be after a prior act of divine volition...Rather, everything small and large is written and comes to be in a known and expected measure.