It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.

Philosophy is a more intense sort of experience than common life is, just as pure and subtle music, heard in retirement, is something keener and more intense than the howling of storms or the rumble of cities.

Government is the political representative of a natural equilibrium, of custom, of inertia; it is by no means a representative of reason.

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

By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.

Better not be a hero than work oneself up into heroism by shouting lies.

Mortality has its compensations; one is that all evils are transitory, another that better times may come.