The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hinderances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them.

There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear.

Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.

Whatsoever is, is in God.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

The more intelligible a thing is, the more easily it is retained in the memory, and counterwise, the less intelligible it is, the more easily we forget it.