Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail.

Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired

The sciences are found, like Hercules's oxen, by tracing them backward; and old sciences are unravelled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.

I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude and resignation we can bear the suffering of other folks.

Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !