Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere

Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

What a chimaera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?

We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not thinkof the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us.