Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the rest--beginning, middle, and end--isnothing but dreams and smoke.

A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.

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

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.

Marriage has, for its share, usefulness, justice, honour, and constancy; a stale but more durable pleasure. Love is grounded on pleasure alone, and it is indeed more gratifying to the senses, keener and more acute; a pleasure stirred and kept alive by difficulties. There must be a sting and a smart in it. It ceases to be love if it has no shafts and no fire.

It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.

The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.