Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would amount to the same.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

That which makes us go so far for love is that we never think that we might have need of anything besides that which we love.

What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.

By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.

If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.