The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding we discern not the danger, so in their full growth we perceive not the remedy.

Perhaps it is not without reason that we attribute facility in belief and conviction to simplicity and ignorance; for it seems to me I once learned that belief was sort of an impression made on our mind, and that the softer it is the less resistant t.

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

Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path.

I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgment; I examine.

There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions.

Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay.