Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too.
Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.
When some passion or effect is described in a natural style, we find within ourselves the truth of what we hear, without knowing it was there.
Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them.
To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair.
I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle: Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind ofDescartes, and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years before.
What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.
If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would itself be venerable enough.
That dog is mine said those poor children; that place in the sun is mine; such is the beginning and type of usurpation throughout the earth.[Fr., Ce chien est a moi, disaient ces pauvres enfants; c'est la ma place au soleil. Voila le commencement et l'image de l'usurpation de toute la terre.]
There are two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. The supreme achievement of reason is to realise that there is a limit to reason. Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that.
The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pully is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel.
Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.
Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.
Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere
I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to condemn him and those who choose to divert themselves, and I can only approve of those who seek with groans.
Good deeds, when concealed, are the most admirable.
It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.
All is one, all is different. How many natures exist in man? How many vocations? And by what chance does each man ordinarily choose what he has heard praised?
It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs.
Let each of us examine his thoughts
Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.
Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.
Our imagination so magnifies this present existence, by the power of continual reflection on it, and so attenuates eternity, by not thinking of it at all, that we reduce an eternity to nothingness, and expand a mere nothing to an eternity; and this habit is so inveterately rooted in us that all the force of reason cannot induce us to lay it aside.
All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment.
Reason is the slow and torturous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it
Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will.
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 that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.
Quelque e tendue d'esprit que l'on ait, l'on n'est capable que d'une grande passion. However vast a man's spirit, he is only capable of one great passion.
Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end... To leave the mean is to abandon humanity.
Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, because they want to comprehend at a glance and are not used to seeking for first principles. Those, on the other hand, who are accustomed to reason from first principles do not understand matters of feeling at all, because they look for first principles and are unable to comprehend at a glance.
When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then.
We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.
It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed.
All man's troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room.
There are two types of mind . . . the mathematical, and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the diverse lovable parts of that which it loves.
Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.
We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.
One-half of the ills of life come because men are unwilling to sit down quietly for thirty minutes to think through all the possible consequences of their acts.
To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.
There are plenty of maxims in the world; all that remains is to apply them.
It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf.
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.
We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.
All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces.
The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things; it is feeble if it cannot realize that.
Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.
Great and small suffer the same mishaps.
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 did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. ...such community of intellect that we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love.
Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.
Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
Man's grandeur is that he knows himself to be miserable.
The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety.
All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up.
Reason's last step is to acknowledge that there are infinitely many thingsbeyond it.
All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions.... This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves.
Two similar faces, neither of which alone causes laughter, use laughter when they are together, by their resemblance.
The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room.
