We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.

One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us and whereto our passions transport us. But those which by long habit are rooted in a strong and anchored in a powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies, which diverts us here and there.

Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.

"Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation." -If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he and I was I.

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

No one should be subjected to force over things which belonged to him.

I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.