We desire truth and find within ourselves only uncertainty. - Blaise Pascal

Men, it is in vain that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your intelligence can only bring you to realize that it is not within yourselves that you will find either truth or good.

S'il se vante, je l'abaisse,
S'il s'abaisse, je le vante;
Et le contredis toujours,
Jusqu'à ce qu'il comprenne
Qu'il est un monstre incompréhensible.

A good portrait can only be made by reconciling all our contradictory features, and it is not enough to follow through a series of mutually compatible qualities without reconciling their opposites; to understand an author’s meaning all contradictory passages must be reconciled.