The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own.

We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?

A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.

There is a certain consideration, and a general duty of humanity, that binds us not only to the animals, which have life and feeling, but even to the trees and plants. We owe justice to people, and kindness and benevolence to all other creatures who may be susceptible of it. There is some intercourse between them and us, and some mutual obligation.

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.

No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.