Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

It is certain that the soul is either mortal or immortal. The decision of this question must make a total difference in the principles of morals. Yet philosophers have arranged their moral system entirely independent of this. What an extraordinary blindness!

It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them.

Most of man's trouble comes from his inability to be still.