A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us.

Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is.

Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.

Description of man: dependence, longing for independence, need.

All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone.

Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions against the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act.

Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.