One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it

Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.

Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?

Gentleness and peacefulness regulate our proceedings; theirs are dictated by fury. We employ reason, they accumulate faggots. They preach nothing but love, and breathe nothing but blood. Their words are humane, but their hearts are cruel.

You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals… What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained.

The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre

It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.