Luxury... corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness.

I cannot now change my style, which I acquired, as you can imagine, by dint of labour.

I felt before I thought

When I go out into the countryside and see the sun and the green and everything flowering, I say to myself "Yes indeed, all that belongs to me!"

It is often said that my heart is too open for my own good.

Politeness requires this thing; decorum that; ceremony has its forms, and fashion its laws, and these must always follow, never the promptings of our own nature.

The first man to fence in a piece of land, saying "this is mine" and who found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.