Those who profess contempt for men, and put them on a level with beasts, yet wish to be admired and believed by men, and contradict themselves by their own feelings--their nature, which is stronger than all, convincing them of the greatness of man more forcibly than reason convinces them of his baseness.

The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things; it is feeble if it cannot realize that.

The heart has its reasons, which Reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which feels God, and not Reason. This, then, is perfect faith: God felt in the heart.

When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.

We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.

You corrupt religion either in favour of your friends, or against your enemies.

I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.