Idleness and constancy fix the mind to what it finds easy and agreeable. This habit always confines and cramps up our knowledge; and no one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go.

A man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. A man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it.

We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.

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.

There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.

Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.

Hope is the last thing that dies in man.