Human beings do not know their place and purpose. They have fallen from their true place, and lost their true purpose. They search everywhere for their place and purpose, with great anxiety. But they cannot find them because they are surrounded by darkness.

The art of subversion, of revolution, is to dislodge established customs by probing down to their origins in order to show how they lack authority and justice.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Not to be mad is another form of madness

God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind.

It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.

We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six persons immediately around us is enough to amuse and satisfy us.