All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

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.

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.

Reality and perfection are synonymous.

Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.

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