Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in others.

Thought makes the whole dignity of man; therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality.

One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.