Flies are so mighty that they win battles, paralyse our minds, eat up our bodies.

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.

Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature.

We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.

Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.

Everything that is incomprehensible does not, however, cease to exist.

Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.