If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head.

I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.

There is no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended nature; there is a kind of I know not what congratulation in well-doing, that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a certain generous boldness that accompanies a good conscience.

He whose mouth is out of taste says the wine is flat.

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

When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.

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