Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.

Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.

Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.

The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

Laws gain their authority from actual possession and custom: it is perilous to go back to their origins; laws, like our rivers, get greater and nobler as they roll along: follow them back upstream to their sources and all you find is a tiny spring, hardly recognizable; as time goes by it swells with pride and grows in strength.

There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.

Our religion is made to eradicate vices, instead it encourages them, covers them, and nurtures them.