If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.

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

Praise the beautiful for their intelligence and the intelligent for their beauty.

I often had no scruples about deceiving nitwits and scoundrels and fools when I found it necessary. ...We avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and... deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man. What has infused my very blood with an unconquerable hatred of the whole tribe of fools from the day of my birth is that I become a fool myself when I am in their company.

I have lived as a philosopher and die as a Christian.

The philosopher is a person who refuses no pleasures which do not produce greater sorrows, and who knows how to create new ones.

Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion.