The Stoics say, "Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest." And that is not true. Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is not true. Illness comes. Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness.

You see, if the height of the mercury [barometer] column is less on the top of a mountain than at the foot of it (as I have many reasons for believing, although everyone who has so far written about it is of the contrary opinion), it follows that the weight of the air must be the sole cause of the phenomenon, and not that abhorrence of a vacuum, since it is obvious that at the foot of the mountain there is more air to have weight than at the summit, and we cannot possibly say that the air at the foot of the mountain has a greater aversion to empty space than at the top.

True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures.

Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.

The property of power is to protect.