To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair.

Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood.

The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would amount to the same.

There is nothing so insupportable to man as to be in entire repose, without passion, occupation, amusement, or application. Then it is that he feels his own nothingness, isolation, insignificance, dependent nature, powerless, emptiness. Immediately there issue from his soul ennui, sadness, chagrin, vexation, despair.

Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipe below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail.