“Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.”

“What a chimaera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?”

“Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.”

“If he exalts himself, I humble him.If he humbles himself, I exalt him.And I go on contradicting himUntil he understandsThat he is a monster that passes all understanding.”

“This religion so great in miracles, in men holy, pure and irreproachable, in scholars, great witnesses and martyrs, established kings - David - Isaiah, a prince of the blood; so great in knowledge, after displaying all its miracles and all its wisdom, rejects it all and says that it offers neither wisdom nor signs, but only the Cross and folly.”

“Nobody is publicly accepted as an expert on poetry unless he displays the sign of poet, mathematician, etc., but universal men want no sign and make hardly any distinction between the crafts of poet and embroiderer.Universal men are not called poets or mathematicians, etc. But they are all these things and judges of them too. No one could guess what they are, and they will talk about whatever was being talked about when they came in. One quality is not more noticeable in them than another, unless it becomes necessary to put it into practice, and then we remember it.”

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”