The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.

If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize.

Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light; for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.

The world always looks straights ahead; as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself; I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward; as for me, I roll about in myself.

If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am.

When a Roman was returning from a trip, he used to send someone ahead to let his wife know, so as not to surprise her in the act.

It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.