“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.", 1657)”

“I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.”

“To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.”

“When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowin...”

“Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back”

“I have little use for religion as it is practiced, or for astrology, or for belief in witchcraft or omens of good or ill-luck. I think they all stem from some insufficiency in mens minds, perhaps f...”

“It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent.”

“So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives deligh...”