Silence. All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.

Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just.

Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.

The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first.

We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them.

Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical.

If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would itself be venerable enough.