If anyone spends almost the whole day in reading...he gradually loses the capacity for thinking...This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid

Our life is a loan received from death with sleep as the daily interest on this loan.

It is only the hope of what is claimed that begets and nurishes the wish.

[T]he appropriate form of address between man and man ought to be, not monsieur, sir, but fellow sufferer, compagnon de miseres.

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

It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.

Compassion is the basis of morality.