To abstain that we may enjoy is the epicurianism of reason.

I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted...without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of an object, was always suppressed. ...The impossibility of attaining the real persons precipitated me into the land of chimeras; and seeing nothing that existed worthy of my exalted feelings, I fostered them in an ideal world which my creative imagination soon peopled with beings after my own heart.

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.

The man is best served who has no occasion to put the hands of others at the end of his own arms.

The truths of the Scriptures are so marked and inimitable, that the inventor would be more of a miraculous character than the hero.

Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.

The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.