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Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.

I cannot imagine a man without thought; he would be a stone or an animal.

If we dreamt the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if the artisan were sure to dream every night for twelve hours' duration that he was king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king, who should dream every night that he was an artisan.

We find fault with perfection itself.

Why are you killing me for your own benefit? I am unarmed.' 'Why, do you not live on the other side of the water? My friend, if you lived on this side, I should be a murderer, but since you live on the other side, I am a brave man and it is right.'

Montaigne is wrong. Custom should be followed only because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. But people follow it for this sole reason, that they think it just. Otherwise they would follow it no longer, although it were the custom; for they will only submit to reason or justice.

Thought constitutes the greatness of man.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see.

Instinct and reason, marks of two natures.

Memory is necessary for all the operations of reason.

It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.

A strange justice that is bounded by a river! Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side.