People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.

The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.

There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)

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

Everything must not always be said, for that would be folly.

Knowledge is an excellent drug; but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.

The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, and with good reason; that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents