Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it.

Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.

Time steals away without any inconvenience.

Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.

To understand via the heart is not to understand.

Memory is a wonderfully useful tool, and without it judgement does its work with difficulty; it is entirely lacking in me.... Now,the more I distrust my memory, the more confused it becomes. It serves me better by chance encounter; I have to solicit it nonchalantly. For if I press it, it is stunned; and once it has begun to totter, the more I probe it, the more it gets mixed up and embarrassed. It serves me at its own time, not at mine.

I do not know whether I would not like much better to have produced one perfectly formed child by intercourse with the muses than by intercourse with my wife.