I don't conquer, I submit.

I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding.

Happy are those lovers who, when their senses require rest, can fall back upon the intellectual enjoyments afforded by the mind! Sweet sleep then comes, and lasts until the body has recovered its general harmony. On awaking, the senses are again active and always ready to resume their action.

The mind of a human being is formed only of comparisons made in order to examine analogies, and therefore cannot precede the existence of memory.

I have often met with happiness after some imprudent step which ought to have brought ruin upon me, and although passing a vote of censure upon myself I would thank God for his mercy.

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 forgets does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance; forgiveness is the offspring of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness.