When our vices desert us, we flatter ourselves that we are deserting our vices.

It is often hard to determine whether a clear, open, and honorable proceeding is the result of goodness or of cunning.

Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness.

We never desire strongly, what we desire rationally.

It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.

The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body; and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another.

There are two things which Man cannot look at directly without flinching: the sun and death.