To smell, though well, is to stink.

I, who am king of the matter I treat, and who owe an accounting for it to no one, do not for all that believe myself in all I write. I often hazard sallies of my mind which I mistrust.

We have power over nothing except our will.

Habituation puts to sleep the eye of our judgment.

I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them; we should accept them.

If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant; that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.