The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well.

If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts; if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another.

We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions; we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.

Is it not better to remain in suspense than to entangle yourself in the many errors that the human fancy has produced? Is it not better to suspend your convictions than to get mixed up in these seditious and quarrelsome divisions?

To understand via the heart is not to understand.

An honest man is not accountable for the vice and folly of his trade, and therefore ought not to refuse the exercise of it. It is the custom of his country, and there is profit in it. We must live by the world, and such as we find it, so make use of it.

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.