We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.

The concern that some women show at the absence of their husbands, does not arise from their not seeing them and being with them, but from their apprehension that their husbands are enjoying pleasures in which they do not participate, and which, from their being at a distance, they have not the power of interrupting.

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

There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline.

We took advantage of [the Indians'] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily toward treachery, lewdness, avarice, and every sort of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our ways.

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

If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.