There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.

It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us; our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light.

Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.

I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that tied them together.

Men are nothing until they are excited.

How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and betray us to those around!

Their [the Skeptics'] way of speaking is: "I settle nothing. . . . I do not understand it. . . . Nothing seems true that may not seem false." Their sacramental word is . . . , which is to say, I suspend my judgment.