Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy; research, the progress; ignorance, the end. There is, by heavens, a strong and generous kind of ignorance that yields nothing, for honour and courage, to knowledge: an ignorance to conceive which needs no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge.

I don't break the law* made for crooks, when I take away my own property - thus I am not obliged to conform to the law made for murderers when I deprive myself of my own life.

For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.

Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.