I would rather produce my passions than brood over them at my expense; they grow languid when they have vent and expression. It is better that their point should operate outwardly than be turned against us.

I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.

For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom.

It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.

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

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.