The pleasures of the imagination are as it were only drawings and models which are played with by poor people who cannot afford the real thing.

Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient.

It is said that truth comes from the mouths of fools and children: I wish every good mind which feels an inclination for satire would reflect that the finest satirist always has something of both in him.

We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.

To be content with life or to live merrily, rather all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.

A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.