God is necessary, and therefore must exist...But I know that he does not and cannot exist...Don't you understand that a man with these two thoughts cannot go on living?

I used to imagine adventures for myself, I invented a life, so that I could at least exist somehow.

One can't understand everything at once, we can't begin with perfection all at once! In order to reach perfection one must begin by being ignorant of a great deal. And if we understand things too quickly, perhaps we shan't understand them thoroughly.

Reason is the slave of passion.

What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning.

You can't be angry with me, because I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact that I shall never see you again.

Gambling is a most foolish and imprudent pursuit.