Style is the physiognomy of the mind. It is more infallible than that of the body. To imitate the style of another is said to be wearing a mask. However beautiful it may be, it is through its lifelessness insipid and intolerable, so that even the most ugly living face is more engaging.

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.

This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.

Mostly the loss teaches us only about the value of things.

Each day is a little life.

Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.

Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.