Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.

Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.

Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.

There is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury...but envy can gain nothing but vexation.

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.