There is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it.

The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.

I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.

In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.

For each of us there is a set limit to our intellectual powers which we cannot pass.

What then is the source of my errors? They are owing simply to the fact that, since the will extends further than the intellect, I do not contain the will within the same boundaries; rather, I also extend it to things I do not understand. Because the will is indifferent in regard to such matters, it easily turns away from the true and the good; and in this way I am deceived and I sin.

Be that as it may, there is fixed in my mind a certain opinion of long standing, namely that there exists a God who is able to do anything and by whom I, such as I am, have been created. How do I know that he did not bring it about that there is no earth at all, no heavens, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, and yet bringing it about that all these things appear to me to exist precisely as they do now?