Who confers reputation? who gives respect and veneration to persons, to books, to great men? Who but Opinion? How utterly insufficient are all the ri….

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others..

No one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot se….

The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room..

The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory..

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first..

If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that ….

All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch..

That queen, of error, whom we call fancy and opinion, is the more deceitful because she does not always deceive. She would be the infallible rule of ….

A jester, a bad character..

The secrets of nature are concealed; her agency is perpetual, but we do not always discover its effects; time reveals them from age to age; and altho….

The more intelligence one has, the more people one finds original. Commonplace people see no difference between men..

The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its ow….

In proportion as our own mind is enlarged we discover a greater number of men of originality. Commonplace people see no difference between one man a….

We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six ….

We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity ….

Eloquence is the painting of thought..

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them..

Condition de l'homme: inconstance, ennui, inquie tude. Man's condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety..

Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first..

Pride counterbalances all our miseries, for it either hides them, or, if it discloses them, boasts of that disclosure. Pride has such a thorough poss….