It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality.

I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.

Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most.

Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.

A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awake his vigor, and to keep it from growing faint and rusty. And there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline.

There are truths on this side of the Pyrenees which are falsehoods on the other

Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.