There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.

My opinion is that we must lend ourselves to others and give ourselves only to ourselves. If my will happened to be prone to mortgage and attach itself, I would not last: I am too tender, both by nature and by practice.

We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength, experience, activity, and beauty; but an advantage in judgment we yield to none.

No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.

Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state.

To know how to live is my trade and my art.

And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.