One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind.

Men still have to be governed by deception.

God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.

The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.

People who have read a good deal rarely make great discoveries. I do not say this in excuse of laziness, but because invention presupposes an extensive independent contemplation of things.

A man has virtues enough if he deserves pardon for his faults on account of them.