Be the flame, not the moth.

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

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.

I saw that everything famous and beautiful in the world, if we judge by the descriptions and drawings of writers and artists, always loses when we go to see it and examine it closely.

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.

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

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