Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

Let us now speak according to natural lights. If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible. . . . We are then incapable of knowing of either what He is or if He is. . . .

At the centre of every human being is a God-shaped vacuum which can only be filled by Jesus Christ.

Knowledge has two extremes. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great minds, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same natural ignorance from which they set out; this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.

It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs.

Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point.