The entire ocean is affected by a single pebble.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

By a peculiar prerogative, not only each individual is making daily advances in the sciences, and may make advances in morality (which is the science, by way of eminence, of living well and being happy), but all mankind together is making a continual progress in proportion as the universe grows older. So that the whole human race, during the course of so many ages, may be considered as one man who never ceases to live and learn.

Unless we love the truth we cannot know it.

Something incomprehensible is not for that reason less real.

Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness.

We do not worry about being respected in towns through which we pass. But if we are going to remain in one for a certain time, we do worry. How long does this time have to be?