Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance.

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

To understand via the heart is not to understand.

No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.

Glory and repose are things that cannot possibly inhabit in one and the same place.

In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.

Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction.