Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.

A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude.

My opinion is that we must lend ourselves to others and give ourselves only to ourselves. If my will happened to be prone to mortgage and attach itself, I would not last: I am too tender, both by nature and by practice.

We ought to love temperance for itself, and in obedience to God who has commanded it and chastity; but what I am forced to by catarrhs, or owe to the stone, is neither chastity nor temperance.

It is setting a high value upon our opinions to roast men and women alive on account of them.

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

Que sçais-je?" (What do I know?)