We are never in search of things, but always in search of the search.

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. but even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

The sweetness of glory is so great that, join it to what we will, even to death, we love it.

It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter the heart through the understanding, but the understanding through the heart.

Thought makes the whole dignity of man; therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality.

Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man.