To judge the appearances we receive of things, we should need a judicatory instrument; to verify this instrument, we should need a demonstration; to rectify this demonstration, we should need an instrument: so here we are arguing in a circle. Seeing the senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason, so here we are retreating backwards to all eternity. Essays

Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer. Counsels and Maxims

“A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so.” Stranger

The finest virtues can become deformed with age. The precise mind becomes finicky; the thrifty man, miserly; the cautious man, timorous; the man of imagination, fanciful. Even perseverance ends up in a sort of stupidity. Just as, on the other hand, being too willing to understand too many opinions, too diverse ways of seeing, constancy is lost and the mind goes astray in a restless fickleness. Reflections on Literature and Morality