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 tranquility or agitation of our temper does not depend so much on the big things which happen to us in life, as on the pleasant or unpleasant arrangements of the little things which happen daily.

We are lazier in our minds than in our bodies.

He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it.

The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.

Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.

Narrow minds think nothing right that is above their own capacity.