True courage is the result of reasoning. A brave mind is always impregnable. Resolution lies more in the head than in the veins, and a just sense of honor and of infamy, of duty and of religion, will carry us farther than all the force of mechanism.

There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.

A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading.

Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and make a seeming difficulty gives way.

Avoid all affectation and singularity. What is according to nature is best, and what is contrary to it is always distasteful. Nothing is graceful that is not our own.

Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.

The end of pleasure is to support the offices of life, to relieve the fatigues of business, to reward a regular action, and to encourage the continuance.