To turn events into ideas is the function of literature.

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect...

The works of nature first acquire a meaning in the commentaries they provoke.

A conceived thing is doubly a product of mind, more a product of mind, if you will, than an idea, since ideas arise, so to speak,by the mind's inertia and conceptions of things by its activity. Ideas are mental sediment; conceived things are mental growths.

The Soul is the voice of the body's interests.

There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.