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

Continuous eloquence is tedious.

Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man.

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.

Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.

Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first.

A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us.