If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.

Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.

It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us; our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light.

Give me the provisions and whole apparatus of a kitchen, and I would starve.