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There is internal war in man between reason and the passions. If he had only reason without passions. If he had only passions without reason. But having both, he cannot be without strife, being unable to be at peace with the one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided against, and opposed to himself.

...we cannot endure being despised, or not being esteemed by any soul; and all the happiness of men consists in this esteem.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.

All the principles of skeptics, stoics, atheists, etc., are true. But their conclusions are false, because the opposite principles are also true.

Two things instruct man about his whole nature; instinct and experience.

We have an incapacity of proof, insurmountable by all dogmatism. We have an idea of truth, invincible to all skepticism.

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.

This twofold nature of man is so evident that some have thought that we had two souls. A single subject seemed to them incapable of such sudden variations from unmeasured presumption to a dreadful dejection of heart.

What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe!

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.