Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

Our imagination so magnifies this present existence, by the power of continual reflection on it, and so attenuates eternity, by not thinking of it at all, that we reduce an eternity to nothingness, and expand a mere nothing to an eternity; and this habit is so inveterately rooted in us that all the force of reason cannot induce us to lay it aside.

We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too.