"Scepticism.—Excess, like defect of intellect, is accused of madness. Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whatever end, I will not oppose it. I quite consent to put myself there, and refuse to be at the lower end, not because it is low, but because it is an end; for I would likewise refuse to be placed at the top. To leave the mean is to abandon humanity. The greatness of the human soul consists in knowing how to preserve the mean. So far from greatness consisting in leaving it, it consists in not leaving it."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Pensées
335 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Pensées →
Related Quotes
"Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is."
"Mais c'est une ignorance savante qui se connaît."
"Nothing is surer than that the people will be weak."
"One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person."
"The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the mo…"
"La dernière chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la première."
"Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not …"
"Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference..."
"I cannot imagine a man without thought; he would be a stone or an animal."
"Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might."