It is of very little use in trying to be dignified, if dignity is no part of your character.

The opinions of the misanthropical rest upon this very partial basis, that they adopt the bad faith of a few as evidence of the worthlessness of all.

The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

The life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.

Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties.

We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.