We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so gross as ours.

Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

..a man may live long, yet live very little. Satisfaction in life depends not on the number of your years, but on your will.

I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself; but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.

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

Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind.