"Philosophers.-We are full of things which take..." - Quote by Blaise Pascal

“We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.”

“Those who write against vanity want the glory of having written well, and their readers the glory of reading well, and I who write this have the same desire, as perhaps those who read this have also.”

“If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us much as the objects we see every day. And if a common workman were sure to dream every night for twelve hours that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was a common workman.”

“There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind Junior.”

“Fame is proof that the people are gullible.”

“There is no vice of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no unkindness, which excites so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends and neighbours, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime, which reason cannot defend, nor humility mitigate.”

“There are two laws discreteNot reconciled,Law for man, and law for thing.”

“You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters — all that matters, really is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest - women , art, success — is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.”

“How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.”