When I am attached by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.

To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death.

In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists.

I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it.

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books; they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences; they always receive me with the same kindness.