If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the seed of any animal (e.g. man), we could from that alone, be reasons entirely mathematica….

Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow..

At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions..

The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge..

Instead I ought to be grateful to Him who never owed me anything for having been so generous to me, rather than think that He deprived me of those th….

It's the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: "I don't really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it.".

My third maxim was to try always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to….

Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable..

In the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than by the many..

Conquer yourself rather than the world..

The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts..

Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt..

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it..

The nature of matter, or body considered in general, consists not in its being something which is hard or heavy or coloured, or which affects the sen….

De omnibus dubitandum.

There is nothing more ancient than the truth..

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries..

But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be..

The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully stud….

The principal use of prudence, of self-control, is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions, and to so control and guide them that the evils ….

Hence reason also demands that, since our thoughts cannot all be true because we are not wholly perfect, what truth they do possess must inevitably b….