There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.

If this life is unhappy, it is a burden to us, which it is difficult to bear; if it is in every respect happy, it is dreadful to be deprived of it; so that in either case the result is the same, for we must exist in anxiety and apprehension.

It is a great misfortune neither to have enough wit to talk well nor enough judgment to be silent.

A man can keep another's secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.

When we have run through all forms of government, without partiality to that we were born under, we are at a loss with which to side; they are all a compound of good and evil. It is therefore most reasonable and safe to value that of our own country above all others, and to submit to it.

A person's worth in this world is estimated according to the value he puts on himself.

Days, months, years fly away, and irrecoverably sink in the abyss of time.