"Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed."

Thoughts. Chap. ii. 10.

"It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause."

Thoughts. Chap. iv. 1.

"Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just."

Thoughts. Chap. iv. 6.

"Thus we never live, but we hope to live; and always disposing ourselves to be happy, it is inevitable that we never become so."

Thoughts. Chap. v. 2.

"If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been changed."

Thoughts. Chap. viii. 29.

"The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first."

Thoughts. Chap. ix. 30.

"Rivers are highways that move on, and bear us whither we wish to go."

Thoughts. Chap. ix. 38.

"What a chimera, then, is man! what a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of all things, feeble worm of the earth, depositary of the truth, cloaca of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe!"

Thoughts. Chap. x. 1.

"We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart."

Thoughts. Chap. x. 1.

"For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it?"

Preface to the Treatise on Vacuum.