We must always skim over pleasures. They are like marshy lands that we must travel nimbly, hardly daring to put down our feet.

An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.

I hate war, for it spoils conversation.

I detest war; it ruins conversation

A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.

Mathematicians are like lovers. Grant a mathematician the least principle, and he will draw from it a consequence which you must also grant him, and from this consequence another.

Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.