Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.

Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.

The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.

Experience teaches that a strong memory is generally joined to a weak judgment.

I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.

It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.

We are all of us richer than we think we are.