It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present.

Who confers reputation? who gives respect and veneration to persons, to books, to great men? Who but Opinion? How utterly insufficient are all the riches of the world without her approbation!

Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point.

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

La vraie e loquence se moque de l'e loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality.

The property of power is to protect.