I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

Custom determines what is agreeable.

We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.

One of the greatest artifices the devil uses to engage men in vice and debauchery, is to fasten names of contempt on certain virtues, and thus fill weak souls with a foolish fear of passing for scrupulous, should they desire to put them in practice.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.