The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.

The sicknesses of the soul have their ups and downs like those of the body; what we take to be a cure is most often merely a respite or change of disease.

A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.

Absence cools moderate passions, and inflames violent ones; just as the wind blows out candles, but kindles fires.

Folly pursues us at all periods of our lives. If someone seems wise it is only because his follies are proportionate to his age and fortune.

Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.

It is necessary, in order to know things well, to know the particulars of them; and these, being infinite, make our knowledge eversuperficial and imperfect.