A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.

True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint.

One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.

If atoms do, by chance, happen to combine themselves into so many shapes, why have they never combined together to form a house or a slipper? By the same token, why do we not believe that if innumerable letters of the Greek alphabet were poured all over the market-place they would eventually happen to form the text of the Iliad?

Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.

We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men.

In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain.