Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.

It is folly to seek the approbation of any being besides the Supreme.

Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor.

The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace.

Content thyself to be obscurely good.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.