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.

We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions; we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.

'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off; who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.

A good marriage (if any there be) refuses the conditions of love and endeavors to present those of amity.

Nobody is exempt from saying stupid things, the harm is to do it presumptuously.

All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it.

God is favorable to those whom he makes to die by degrees; 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most.