Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly.

What harm cause not those huge draughts or pictures which wanton youth with chalk or coals draw in each passage, wall or stairs of our great houses, whence a cruel contempt of our natural store is bred in them?

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.

It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other.

What am I to choose? "Choose what you please, as long as you choose." There you have a foolish answer, which seems to be the outcome, however, of all Dogmatism, which will not allow us to be ignorant of that which we are ignorant.

Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.