There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.

Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature. A child under the age of fifteen should confine its attention either to subjects like mathematics, in which errors of judgment are impossible, or to subjects in which they are not very dangerous, like languages, natural science, history, etc.

That which knows all things and is known by none is the subject.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow.

To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.

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