Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one's own the suffering and joys of others.

Each of us really understands in others only those feelings he is capable of producing himself.

Humanity cherishes its swaddling clothes; but it shall not grow up unless it can free itself from them. Turning down his mother's breast does not make the weaned child ungrateful. ... Rise up naked, valiant; make the sheaths crack; push aside the stakes; to grow straight you need no more than the thrust of your sap and the call of the sun.

Nothing is good for everyone, but only relatively to some people.

Our judgements about things vary according to the time left us to live -that we think is left us to live.

It is only through restraint that man can manage not to suppress himself.