Those great efforts of intellect, upon which the mind sometimes touches, are such that it cannot maintain itself there. It only leaps to them, not as upon a throne, forever, but merely for an instant.

When a soldier complains of his hard life (or a labourer, etc.) try giving him nothing to do.

All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature.

Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.

All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place.