I find it awfully difficult to determine if the habit of talking about oneself at length runs contrary to the basic rules of propriety, or if instead the man exempt from this vice is rare.

In all climates, under all skies, man's happiness is always somewhere else.

The surest way of concealing from others the boundaries of one s own knowledge is not to overstep them.

Nature, with her customary beneficence, has ordained that man shall not learn how to live until the reasons for living are stolen from him, that he shall find no enjoyment until he has become incapable of vivid pleasure.

The commonplace expression that life is nothing but a play is verified above all in this: the world speaks absolutely consistently in one way and acts absolutely consistently in another.

Men seldom act from a correct sense of what may be harmful or useful to them.

There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical.