If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.

Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.

A work of morality, politics, criticism will be more elegant, other things being equal, if it is shaped by the hand of geometry.

Modesty in women has two special advantages,--it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.

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

It is high time for me to depart, for at my age I now begin to see things as they really are.

The judgment may be compared to a clock or watch, where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate alone can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest differences of time.