Man may have the most excellent judgment in all other matters, and yet go wrong in those which concern himself; because here the will comes in and deranges the intellect at once. Therefore let a man take counsel of a friend. A doctor can cure everyone but himself; if he falls ill, he sends for a colleague.

Human life, like all inferior goods, is covered on the outside with a false glitter; what suffers always conceals itself.

He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.

If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.

We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack. Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.