We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.

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

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.

...for the truth is always older than all the opinions men have held regarding it; and one should be ignoring the nature of truth if we imagined that the truth began at the time it came to be known.

Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.

Man is full of desires: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. "This man is a good mathematician," someone will say. But I have no concern for mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, that is to say, a decent man who can accommodate himself to all my desires in a general sort of way.