Cheating is a sin, but honest cunning is simply prudence. It is a virtue. To be sure, it has a likeness to roguery, but that cannot be helped. He who has not learned to practice it is a fool.

We ourselve are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain.

The sweetest pleasures are those which are hardest to be won.

economy spoils pleasure

The man who seeks to educate himself must first read and then travel in order to correct what he has learned.

God ceases to be God only for those who can admit the possibility of His non-existence, and that conception is in itself the most severe punishment they can suffer.

By recollecting the pleasures I have had formerly, I renew them, I enjoy them a second time, while I laugh at the remembrance of troubles now past, and which I no longer feel.