Great and small suffer the same mishaps.

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

You see, if the height of the mercury [barometer] column is less on the top of a mountain than at the foot of it (as I have many reasons for believing, although everyone who has so far written about it is of the contrary opinion), it follows that the weight of the air must be the sole cause of the phenomenon, and not that abhorrence of a vacuum, since it is obvious that at the foot of the mountain there is more air to have weight than at the summit, and we cannot possibly say that the air at the foot of the mountain has a greater aversion to empty space than at the top.

Who knows if this other half of life where we think we're awake is not another sleep a little different from the first.

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.

Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.

What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.