True eloquence scorns eloquence..

Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny..

Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back..

If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do no….

Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder..

We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves, for they add to the state in which we are the passions of the state in wh….

All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature..

All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly..

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous..

Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipe below, although his reason may convince him that he….

The principles of pleasure are not firm and stable. They are different in all mankind, and variable in every particular with such a diversity that th….

When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one di….

Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know….

Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to go off and amuse himself conquering the world. Such a pastime was all right for Augustus and Alexander; they w….

What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely remove….

Our true dignity consists — in thought. Thence we must derive our elevation, not from space or duration. Let us endeavor then to think well; this is ….

Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then ….

All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms..

All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that man cannot sit still in a room..

However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion..

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things..