A profound knowledge of life is the least enviable of all species of knowledge, because it can only be acquired by trials that make us regret the loss of our ignorance.

Reason dissipates the illusions of life, but does not console us for their departure.

Happiness consists not in having much, but in being content with little.

Those can most easily dispense with society who are the most calculated to adorn it; they only are dependent on it who possess no mental resources, for though they bring nothing to the general mart, like beggars, they are too poor to stay at home.

Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory . . .

The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.

When we bring back with us the objects most dear, and find those we left unchanged, we are tempted to doubt the lapse of time; but one link in the chain of affection broken, and every thing seems altered.