There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation..

The exterior must be joined to the interior to obtain anything from God, that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, and soon, in order that p….

Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain ….

For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infin….

I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set ….

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care..

Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenet….

The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality..

The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling ….

There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing….

No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness..

Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant..

L'on a beau se cacher a' soi-me" me, l'on aime toujours. We vainly conceal from ourselves the fact that we are always in love..

The stream is always purer at its source. [Fr., Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur source.].

All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment..

Men blaspheme what they do not know..

We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happ….

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere..

Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood..

The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath the surface..

Something incomprehensible is not for that reason less real..