Few authors understand themselves, and a proper reader must not only understand his author but also be able to see beyond him.

What Tarquin the Proud said in his garden with the poppy blooms was understood by the son but not by the messenger.

Self knowledge begins with the neighbor, the mirror, and just the same with true self-love; that goes from the mirror to the matter.

When I rest my feet my mind also ceases to function.

Thus the public use of reason and freedom is nothing but a dessert, a sumptuous dessert.

Hence it happens that one takes words for concepts, and concepts for the things themselves

Being, belief and reason are pure relations, which cannot be dealt with absolutely, and are not things but pure scholastic concepts, signs for understanding, not for worshipping, aids to awaken our attention, not to fetter it.