I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”, 1657)
I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.
To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
Δύο υπερβολές : ν’ αποκλείουμε το Λόγο, και να μη δεχόμαστε παρά μόνο το Λόγο.
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.
It is man’s natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth.
He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.
The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.
There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration.
No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin none of the philosophical sects has admitted it none therefore has spoken the truth
Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then.
Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare it is the pleasure even of kings.
Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
There is nothing we can now call our own, for what we call so is the effect of art; crimes are made by decrees of the senate, or by the votes of the people; and as here-to-fore we are burdened by vices, so now we are oppressed by laws.
There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature… and the thing which pleases us.
When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.
I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.
Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.
Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.
Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.
All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us; as in nature walls can kill us, and stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly.
The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.
Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.
The infinite distance between the mind & the body is a symbol of the distance that is infinitely more, between the intellect & love, for love is divine.
The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.
If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.
God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.
Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.
Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man…?
The knowledge of God without that of man’s misery causes pride. The knowledge of man’s misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery.
Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.
Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.
If man studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of going further.
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much
Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.
Finally, let them recognise that there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.
Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.
The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.
All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.
Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.
This dog is mine,” said those poor children; “that is my place in the sun.” Here is the beginning and the image of the usurpation of all the earth.
The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice.
What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.
Eloquence.— We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true.
In every action we must look beyond the action at our past, present and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all these things.
I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.
The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct.
Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
Il n’est pas certain que tout soit incertain.(Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)
The charm of fame is so great, that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.
We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.
Just as all things speak about God to those that know Him, and reveal Him to those that love Him, they also hide Him from all those that neither seek nor know Him.
I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it sho
Our nature consists in motion complete rest is death.
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
In each action we must look beyond the action at our past present and future state and at others whom it affects and see the relation of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
We sail within a vast sphere ever drifting in uncertainty driven from end to end.
Losses are comparative imagination only makes them of any moment.
Losses are comparative only imagination makes them of any moment.
Losses are comparative imagination only makes them of any moment.
Faith declares what the senses do not see but not the contrary of what they see.
Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can go only so far but faith has no limits.
It is the heart which experiences God and not the reason.
It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.
If we all told what we know of one another there would not be four friends in the world
It is the heart which experiences God not the reason.
The majority is the best way because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able.
Everyone without exception is searching for happiness.
All men have happiness as their object: there are no exceptions. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end.
Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.
Man is only a reed the weakest thing in nature but he is a thinking reed.
If a soldier or labourer complains of the hardship of his lot set him to do nothing.
It is the heart which experiences God not the reason.
The heart has reasons which reason cannot understand.
Two things control man’s nature: instinct and experience.
Lust and force are the source of all our actions lust causes voluntary actions force involuntary ones.
We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves we desire to live an imaginary life in the minds of others and for this purpose we endeavor to shine.
The power of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special efforts but by his ordinary doing.
If you want people to think well of you do not speak well of yourself.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.
The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things it is feeble if it cannot realize that.
All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end.
Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably.
As we are always preparing to be happy it is inevitable that we should never be so.
The past and present are only our means the future is always our end. Thus we never really live but only hope to live.
All mankind’s unhappiness derives from one thing: his inability to know how to remain in repose in one room.
Let it not be said that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of the material is new.
I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.
Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom through thought I comprehend the world.
The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.
The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.
Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.
Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
Human beings must be known to be loved but Divine beings must be loved to be known.
If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!
It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.
Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.
There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.
The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.
It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.
Two things control men’s nature, instinct and experience.
Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.
The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.
Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.
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.
He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.
Men often take their imagination for their heart and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.
Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.
It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.