“The only religion which is against nature, against common sense and against our pleasures is the only one which has always existed.”

“We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them.”

“There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature... and the thing which pleases us.”

“Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.”

“Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.”

“We know the existence of the infinite without knowing its nature, because it too has extension but unlike us no limits.But we do not know either the existence or the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor limits.”

“Once that is clearly understood, I think that each of us can stay quietly in the state in which nature has placed him. since the middle station allotted to us is always far from the extremes, what does it matter if someone else has a slightly better understanding of things? If he has, and if he takes them a little further, is he not still infinitely remote from the goal? Is not our span of life equally infinitesimal in eternity, even if it is extended by ten years?In the perspective of all these infinites, all finites are equal and I see no reason to settle our imagination on one rather than another. Merely comparing ourselves with the finite is painful.”