To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.

It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are most wrong.

It is an injustice that an old, broken, half-dead father should enjoy alone, in a corner of his hearth, possessions that would suffice for the advancement and maintenance of many children.

People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.

The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.

To philosophize is to doubt.

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.