What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earth-worn, depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe.

Pascal, Blaise. "Pensées." Pensées and Other Writings, edited by Anthony Levi, translated by Honor Levi. Oxford University Press, 2008, no. 895.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois. Collected Maxims and Other Reflections, translated by E. H. and A. M. Blackmore and Francine Giguere. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Spinoza, Benedict. Ethics, translated by Michael Silverthorne and Matthew J. Kinser. Cambridge University Press, 2018, pt. 4, prop. 35, note.

De Montaigne, Michel. "We Can Savour Nothing Pure." The Complete Essays, edited and translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics, 1993.