There is no folly of which a man who is not a fool cannot get rid except vanity; of this nothing cures a man except experience of its bad consequences, if indeed anything can cure it.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

When a man dies he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

Had I no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. So shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; I should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after death.

Temperance and labor are the two real physicians of man.

For, as I think I have said, I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.