One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.

We every day and every hour say things of another that we might more properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our observations to our own concerns.

It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.

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.

There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers.

The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.

In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news.