We give advice, we do not inspire conduct.

Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

The only thing that should astonish us is that anything can yet astonish us.

Men never desire anything very eagerly which they desire only by the dictates of reason.

Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself.

We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not.