A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?

[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.

In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.

Who ever saw a doctor use the prescription of his colleague without cutting out or adding something?