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“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
-Pensées, Section XIV, #894


“The greatest of evils is civil war. It is bound to come if people want to reward merit, because everyone will claim to be meritorious. The evil to be feared if the succession falls by right of birth to a fool is neither so great nor so certain.”
-Pensées, Section V, #313

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“Lust and force are the source of all our actions; lust causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.”
-Pensées, Section V, #334


“The least movement affects all nature; the entire sea changes because of a rock. Thus in grace, the least action affects everything by its consequences; therefore everything is important.”
-Pensées, Section VII, #505

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“We know God only through Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all communication with God is broken off. Through Jesus we know God. All those who have claimed to know God and prove his existence without Jesus Christ have only had futile proofs to offer. But to prove Christ we have the prophecies which are solid and palpable proofs. By being fulfilled and proved true by the event, these prophecies show that these truths are certain and thus prove that Jesus is divine. In him and through him, therefore, we know God. Apart from that, without Scripture, without original sin, without the necessary mediator, who was promised and came, it is impossible to prove absolutely that God exists, or to teach sound doctrine and sound morality. But through and in Christ we can prove God’s existence, and teach both doctrine and morality. Therefore Jesus is the true God of men.”
-Pensées, Section VII, #546


“Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.”
-Pensées, Section VII, #547


“Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then; wager that he does exist.”
-Pensées, Section III, #233

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“For a lifetime can be divided into innumerable parts that do not depend on each other in any way. The fact that I existed a short while ago does not imply that I must exist at present unless some other cause re-creates me, as it were, in the present moment or, in other words, conserves me. It is clear to anyone who thinks about the nature of time that the same power and action is obviously required to conserve anything during the individual moments of its duration as would be required to create it for the first time, had it not already existed. Thus there is only a distinction of reason between conservation and creation, and this is one of the things that are evident by the natural light of reason.”
-Meditations of First Philosophy, Third Meditation

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“…I think it proper to remain here for some time in the contemplation of God himself—that I may ponder at leisure his marvelous attributes—and behold, admire, and adore the beauty of this light so unspeakably great, as far, at least, as the strength of my mind, which is to some degree dazzled by the sight, will permit. For just as we learn by faith that the supreme felicity of another life consists in the contemplation of the Divine majesty alone, so even now we learn from experience that like meditation, though incomparably less perfect, is the source of the highest satisfaction of which we are susceptible in this life.”
-Meditations of First Philosophy, Third Meditation


“I still continued, however, to hold in esteem the studies of the schools. I was aware that the languages taught in them are necessary to the understanding of the writings of the ancients; that the grace of fable stirs the mind; that the memorable deeds of history elevate it; and, if read with discretion, aid in forming the judgment; that the perusal of all excellent books is, as it were, to interview with the noblest men of past ages, who have written them, and even a studied interview, in which are discovered to us only their choicest thoughts; that eloquence has incomparable force and beauty; that poesy has its ravishing graces and delights; that in the mathematics there are many refined discoveries eminently suited to gratify the inquisitive, as well as further all the arts an lessen the labour of man; that numerous highly useful precepts and exhortations to virtue are contained in treatises on morals; that theology points out the path to heaven; that philosophy affords the means of discoursing with an appearance of truth on all matters, and commands the admiration of the more simple; that jurisprudence, medicine, and the other sciences, secure for their cultivators honors and riches; and, in fine, that it is useful to bestow some attention upon all, even upon those abounding the most in superstition and error, that we may be in a position to determine their real value, and guard against being deceived.”
-Discourse on Method, Part I


 “For just as all the arts, though in their beginnings they are rude and imperfect, are yet gradually perfected by practice, from their containing at first something true, and whose effect experience evinces; so in philosophy, when we have true principles, we cannot fail by following them to meet sometimes with other truths; and we could not better prove the falsity of those of Aristotle, than by saying that men made no progress in knowledge by their means during the many ages they prosecuted them.”
-Principles of Philosophy, Introduction


“…we should ever bear in mind the infinity of the power and goodness of God, that we may not fear falling into error by imagining his works to be too great, beautiful, and perfect, but that we may, on the contrary, take care lest, by supposing limits to them of which we have no certain knowledge, we appear to think less highly than we ought of the power of God.”
-Principles of Philosophy, Part III

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“From all this I discover, however, that neither the power of willing, which I have received from God, is of itself the source of my errors, for it is exceedingly ample and perfect in its kind; nor even the power of understanding, for as I conceive no object unless by means of the faculty that God bestowed upon me, all that I conceive is doubtless rightly conceived by me, and it is impossible for me to be deceived in it. Whence, then, spring my errors? They arise from this cause alone, that I do not restrain the will, which is of much wider range than the understanding, within the same limits, but extend it even to things I do not understand, and as the will is of itself indifferent to such, it readily falls into error and sin by choosing the false in room of the true, and evil instead of good.”
-Meditations on First Philosophy, Fourth Meditation


“Therefore, I will suppose that, not God who is the source of truth but some evil mind, who is all powerful and cunning, has devoted all their energies to deceiving me.”
-Meditations on First Philosophy, First Meditation

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“Meanwhile whoever eventually happens to be the source of our being, and however powerful and deceptive they are, we still experience in ourselves a freedom such that we can always refrain from believing things that are not fully investigated and certain, and thereby we can take care that we are never mistaken.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 6


“That there is freedom in our will and that we are able to assent or not assent, in many cases arbitrarily, is so evident that it should be counted among the first and most common notions that are innate in us. This was most evident above when, attempting to doubt everything, we reached a point at which we imagined some most powerful author of our origin who tried to deceive us in every way. Despite that, we experienced such freedom in ourselves that we were able to refrain from believing whatever was not fully examined and certain. Nor could there be any other things that are more self-evident and clear than what seemed to be beyond doubt at that time.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 39


“Since we already acknowledge God, we perceive that he has such immense power that we believe it is criminal to think that there is anything we could ever do that was not pre-ordained by him. We can easily involve ourselves in great difficulties if we try to reconcile this pre-ordination by God with the freedom of our will and if we attempt to comprehend both at the same time.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 40


“We shall avoid these difficulties if we remember that our mind is finite, and that the power of God—by which he not only knew eternally everything that exists or could exist, but also willed and pre-ordained them—is infinite. Therefore this power is sufficiently accessible to us to enable us to perceive clearly and distinctly that God possesses it; but it cannot be comprehended by us sufficiently to enable us to see how it leaves human actions free and undetermined. We are so conscious of our freedom and indifference that there is nothing that we comprehend more perfectly or evidently, and it would be absurd just because we do not comprehend one thing which, of its very nature, we know should be incomprehensible to us, to doubt something else of which we have a profound understanding and which we experience in ourselves.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 41

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“Thus the idea of God is the only one left about which to ask the question: does it contain something that could not have originated from me? By the word ‘God’ I understand some infinite substance, which is independent, supremely intelligent and supremely powerful, and by which both I, and everything else that exists (if anything else exists), were created. All these ideas are surely such that, the more carefully I examine them, the less likely it seems that they could have originated from myself alone. Therefore one should draw the conclusion from what has been said that God necessarily exists.”
-Meditations on First Philosophy, Third Meditation


“By reflecting on the fact that I doubted and that, consequently, my being was not completely perfect—for I saw clearly that it was a greater position to know than to doubt—I decided to find out where I learned to think about something that was more perfect than myself, and I knew clearly that this had to be from some nature that was in-fact more perfect. As regards the ideas I had of many other external things, such as the sky, the earth, light, heat and thousands of others, I did not have any comparable difficulty in knowing where they came from, because I did not notice anything in them that seemed to make them superior to me and therefore I was able to believe that, if they were true, they depended on my nature to the extent that they contained any perfection and, if they were not true, I got them from nothing, that is, they were present in me because of some deficiency in me. But the same would not apply to the idea of a being that was more perfect than me. To get such an idea from nothing was something manifestly impossible. And I could not have received it from myself either, because it was just as impossible for something that is more perfect to result from and depend on something less perfect as for something to proceed from nothing. Thus the only remaining option was that this idea was put in me by a nature that was really more perfect than I was, one that even had in itself all the perfections of which I could have some idea, that is—to express myself in a single word—by God.”
-Discourse on Method, Part IV

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“The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only; but things to come have no being at all, the future being but a fiction of the mind, applying the sequels of actions past to the actions that are present; which with most certainty is done by him that has most experience, but not with certainty enough. And though it be called prudence when the event answers our expectation; yet in its own nature it is but presumption. For the foresight of things to come, which is providence, belongs only to him by whose will they are to come.”
-Leviathan, Part I, Ch. III


“Anxiety for the future time, disposes men to enquire into the causes of things: because the knowledge of them, makes men the better able to order the present to their best advantage.”
-Leviathan, Part I, Ch. XI


“No man can have in his mind a conception of the future, for the future is not yet. But of our conceptions of the past, we make a future; or rather, call past, future relatively. Thus after a man hath been accustomed to see like antecedents followed by like consequents, whensoever he sees the like come to pass to any thing he had seen before, he looks there should follow it the same that followed then. As for example: because a man hath often seen offenses followed by punishment, when he sees an offense in present, he thinks punishment to be consequent thereto. But consequent unto that which is present, men call future. And thus we make remembrance to be prevision or conjecture of things to come, or expectation or presumption of the future.”
-The Elements of Law, Ch. 4.7

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“Ignorance of the signification of words; which is, want of understanding, disposes men to take on trust, not only the truth they know not; but also the errors; and which is more, the non-sense of them they trust: For neither Error, nor non-sense, can without a perfect understanding of words, be detected.”
-Leviathan, Part I, Ch. XI


“All that is Necessary to Salvation, is contained in two Virtues, Faith in Christ, and Obedience to Laws. The latter of these, if it were perfect, were enough to us. But because we are all guilty of disobedience to God’s Law, not only originally in Adam, but also actually by our own transgressions, there is required at our hands now, not only Obedience for the rest of our time, but also a Remission of sins for the time past; which Remission is the reward of our Faith in Christ. That nothing else is Necessarily required to Salvation, is manifest from this, that the Kingdom of Heaven, is shut to none but to Sinners; that is to say, to the disobedient, or transgressors of the Law; nor to them, in case they Repent, and Believe all the Articles of Christian Faith, Necessary to Salvation.”
-Leviathan, Part III, Ch. XLIII