Description of man: dependence, longing for independence, need.

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

Excuse me, pray." Without that excuse I would not have known there was anything amiss.

Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might.

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.

It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.

The arithmetical machine produces effects that approach nearer to thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing that would enable us to attribute will to it, as to the animals.