When we see an effect happen always in the same manner, we infer that it takes place by a natural necessity; as, for instance, that the sun will rise to morrow; but nature often deceives us, and will not submit to its own rules.
Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny.
I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.
The married should not forget that to speak of love begets love.
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.
It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.
Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.
Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.
Each one is all in all to himself; for being dead, all is dead to him.
How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals.
Quand on voit le style naturel, on est tout e tonne et ravi, car on s'attendait de voir un auteur, et on trouve un homme. When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man.
Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.
The mind must not be forced; artificial and constrained manners fill it with foolish presumption, through unnatural elevation and vain and ridiculous inflation, instead of solid and vigorous nutriment.
There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.
...for the truth is always older than all the opinions men have held regarding it; and one should be ignoring the nature of truth if we imagined that the truth began at the time it came to be known.
All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly.
Law, without force, is impotent.
The world is ruled by force, not by opinion; but opinion uses force.
Eloquence is the painting of thought.
Must we kill to prevent there being any wicked? This is to make both parties wicked instead of one.
Law was once introduced without reason, and has become reasonable.
We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.
Opinion is the queen of the world.
We feel neither extreme heat nor extreme cold; qualities that are in excess are so much at variance with our feelings that they are impalpable: we do not feel them, though we suffer from their effects.
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