A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance. [The ability to focus on positives and distract your mind from negatives for at least a time is a necessary skill for being happy.]

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences.

Truth possesses within herself a penetrating force, unknown alike to error and falsehood. I say 'truth' and you understand my meaning. For the beautiful words truth and justice need not to be defined in order to be understood in their true sense.

The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.