The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.
It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.
Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
Everything is self-evident.
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
