The passions are the voice of the body.
Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
Men, in general, are not this or that, they are what they are made to be.
Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity.
He who eats in idleness that which he himself has not earned, steals it; and a capitalist whom the state pays for doing nothing differs little in my eyes from a brigand, who lives at the expense of passers-by.
I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.