We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.
Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.
Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.
The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.
The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.
You always admire what you really don't understand.
The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.