Reason deceives us; conscience, never.

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society.

Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it.

It has always pleased me to read while eating if I have no companion; it gives me the society I lack. I devour alternately a page and a mouthful; it is as though my book were dining with me.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.

Childhood has it's own way of seeing, thinking, and feeling, and nothing is more foolish than to try to substitute ours for theirs.