[About Pierre de Fermat] It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part, however, I have always been taught to take a broad overview of things, in order to be able to deduce from them general rules, which might be applicable elsewhere.

Truths are more likely to be discovered by one man than by a nation

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.

We call infinite that thing whose limits we have not perceived, and so by that word we do not signify what we understand about a thing, but rather what we do not understand.

We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.

The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.

The only thing that I know, is that I know nothing