Anyone who wants to know the full extent of man's vanity has only to consider the causes and effects of love. The cause is a <i>je ne sais quoi</i>. … - Blaise Pascal

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them.

If it is pleasing to observe in nature her desire to paint God in all his works, in which we see some traces of him because they are his images, how much more just is it to consider in the productions of minds the efforts which they make to imitate the essential truth, even in shunning it, and to remark wherein they attain it and wherein they wander from it, as I have endeavored to do in this study.

It is absurd of us to rely on the company of our fellows, as wretched and helpless as we are; they will not help us; we shall die alone.
We must act then as if we were alone. If that were so, would we build superb houses, etc.? We should unhesitatingly look for the truth. And, if we refuse, it shows that we have a higher regard for men's esteem than for pursuing the truth.