The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.

All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.

If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.

Why did I love her? Because it was her; because it was me.

Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes; nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky.

God is favorable to those whom he makes to die by degrees; 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most.

The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live.