People who wish to numb our caution in dealing with them by means of flattery are employing a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping draught, which, if it does not put us to sleep, keeps us all the more awake.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

We can speak very much to the purpose and yet in such a way that the whole world cries out in contradiction: namely, when we are not speaking to the whole world.

Become who you are. Make what only you can make.

Whether in conversation we generally agree or disagree with others is largely a matter of habit: the one tendency makes as much sense as the other.

Never to read another book that was born and baptized (with ink) at the same time.

Every past is worth condemning.