What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.

Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.

Look somewhere else for someone who can follow you in your researches about numbers. For my part, I confess that they are far beyond me, and I am competent only to admire them.

Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might.

Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature.

If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.

If man should commence by studying himself, he would see how impossible it is to go further.