Some people read only because they are too lazy to think.

Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?

Pain warns us not to exert our limbs to the point of breaking them. How much knowledge would we not need to recognize this by the exercise of mere reason.

He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.

Honest unaffected distrust of human abilities under all circumstances is the surest sign of strength of mind.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Perseverance can lend the appearance of dignity and grandeur to many actions, just as silence in company affords wisdom and apparent intelligence to a stupid person.