Among the illusions which have invested our civilization is an absolute belief that the solutions to our problems must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise... The reality is that our problems are largely the product of that application.

It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion.

Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here.

It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.

Everything can be borne except contempt.

To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.

If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.