To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.

How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies.

One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

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.

To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.