Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected.

What a man hates, he takes seriously.

Man is quite insane. He wouldn?t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen.

Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.

Truth and reason are common to everyone, and are no more his who spake them first than his who speaks them after.

Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.

Socrates ... brought human wisdom back down from heaven, where she was wasting her time, and restored her to man.... It is impossible to go back further and lower. He did a great favor to human nature by showing how much it can do by itself.