All generalizations are false, including this one. I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.
Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room.
The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.
One must know oneself, if this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.
Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others
Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.
Our nature consists in movement; absolute rest is death.
We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us from seeing it.
We do not worry about being respected in towns through which we pass. But if we are going to remain in one for a certain time, we do worry. How long does this time have to be?
Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.
Those who write against vanity want the glory of having written well, and their readers the glory of reading well, and I who write this have the same desire, as perhaps those who read this have also.
Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth.
When we encounter a natural style we are always surprised and delighted, for we thought to see an author and found a man.
Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.
I cannot judge my work while I am doing it. I have to do as painters do, stand back and view it from a distance, but not too great a distance. How great? Guess.
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
All err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth.
Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will.
Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, because they want to comprehend at a glance and are not used to seeking for first principles. Those, on the other hand, who are accustomed to reason from first principles do not understand matters of feeling at all, because they look for first principles and are unable to comprehend at a glance.
To deny, to believe, and to doubt well are to a man as the race is to a horse.
Words differently arranged have a different meaning and meanings differently arranged have a different effect.
Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
We arrive at truth, not by reason only, but also by the heart.
When the passions become masters, they are vices.
It is not certain that everything is uncertain.
We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.
The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.
Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.
Through space the universe grasps me and swallows me up like a speck; through thought I grasp it.
Let no one say that I have said nothing new... the arrangement of the subject is new. When we play tennis, we both play with the same ball, but one of us places it better.
The excitement that a gambler feels when making a bet is equal to the amount he might win times the probability of winning it.
Reason is the slow and tortuous method by which these who do not know the truth discover it. The heart has its own reason which reason does not know.
The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.
What is man in nature? Nothing in relation to the infinite, all in relation to nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.
[I feel] engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.
Look somewhere else for someone who can follow you in your researches about numbers. For my part, I confess that they are far beyond me, and I am competent only to admire them.
The more I see of men, the better I like my dog.
The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds. Ordinary people find no difference between men.
However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion.
There are two types of mind ... the mathematical, and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the diverse lovable parts of that which it loves.