It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the greatest cities.

I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. They would speak disinterestedly at least, but such a person is not to be found.

Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.

A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.

It is the glory and merit of some men to write well and of others not to write at all.