The history of my life must begin by the earliest circumstance which my memory can evoke it will therefore commence when I had attained the age of eight years and four months.

I have loved women even to madness, but I have always loved liberty better.

Desires are but pain and torment, and enjoyment is sweet because it delivers us from them.

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

As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore, I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher.

In the mean time I worship God, laying every wrong action under an interdict which I endeavour to respect, and I loathe the wicked without doing them any injury.

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