Man is quite insane. He wouldn?t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen.

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

Give me the provisions and whole apparatus of a kitchen, and I would starve.

An honest man is not accountable for the vice and folly of his trade, and therefore ought not to refuse the exercise of it. It is the custom of his country, and there is profit in it. We must live by the world, and such as we find it, so make use of it.

Obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in, and best becoming, a mean and illiterate soul.

The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live.

In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only like doing him good better than having him do me good, but also would rather have him do good to himself than to me; he does me most good when he does himself good.