Strictly speaking, there is but one real evil: I mean acute pain. All other complaints are so considerably diminished by time that it is plain the grief is owing to our passion, since the sensation of it vanishes when that is over.

Solitude begets whimsies.

We are apt to consider Shakespeare only as a poet; but he was certainly one of the greatest moral philosophers that ever lived.

Men are vile inconstant toads.

My chief study all my life has been to lighten misfortunes and multiply pleasures, as far as human nature can.

The use of knowledge in our sex (beside the amusement of solitude) is to moderate the passions and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life and, it may be, preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves and will not suffer us to share.

Forgive what you can't excuse.