When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.

All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions.... This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves.

You always admire what you really don't understand.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.

To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the race is to a horse.

If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us much as the objects we see every day. And if a common workman were sure to dream every night for twelve hours that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was a common workman.

When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is good that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is a restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.