Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.

The world is but a school of inquisition; it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.

We must reserve a back shop all our own entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.

The most regular and most perfect soul in the world has but too much to do to keep itself upright from being overthrown by its own weakness.

It is a small soul, buried beneath the weight of affairs, that does not know how to get clean away from them, that cannot put them aside and pick them up again.

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

I don't break the law* made for crooks, when I take away my own property - thus I am not obliged to conform to the law made for murderers when I deprive myself of my own life.