I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
What hits you affects you and wakes you up more then what pleases you.
Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall story than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion; that at the sound of a drum calling the youthful ardour of his c...
There is nothing more notable in than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.
The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known.
Let every foot have its own shoe.
I speak to the paper, as I speak to the first person I meet.
Every movement reveals us.
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
I know not what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my whole will, carried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that having seized his whole will, brought it back with equal concurren...
Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and th...
A wise man sees as much as he ought not as much as he can.
I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself and not by borrowing.
There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God.
Fear desire hope still push us on toward the future.
And in this we must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves, and so privately that no exotic knowledge or communication be admitted there; there to laugh and to talk, as if without wife,...
We need but little learning to live happily.
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.