Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them.

The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views.

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?

The strength of a man’s virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.

The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it.

Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.

I have discovered that all man’s unhappiness derives from only one source—not being able to sit quietly in a room.

All the glory of greatness has no lustre for people who are in search of understanding.

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.

We perceive an image of truth, and possess only a lie.