There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.

The older we grow, the greater become the ordeals.

The threshold is the place of expectation.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.

The miller imagines that the corn grows only to make his mill turn.

Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.