Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the physical sciences.

Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact minds, provided all things are explained to them by means of definitions and axioms; otherwise they are inaccurate and insufferable, for they are only right when the principles are quite clear.

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; depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe!

For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.

When malice has reason on its side it becomes proud, and parades reason in all its splendour.

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

We never, then, love a person, but only qualities.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain—we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it. v

We never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.