It is a stupid presumption to go about despising and condemning as false anything that seems to us improbable; this is a common fault in those who think they have more intelligence than the crowd.

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.

There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.

Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himselfbe raised and uplifted by purely celestial means.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

The reverse side of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits.