I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.

Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.

Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and lithe, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes.

There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.

Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay.

To understand via the heart is not to understand.

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