Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is.

The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.

In the library of the world men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, and the binding; the time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.

Anticipation leads the way to victory, and is the spur to conquest.

A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.

At the sight of what goes on in the world, the most misanthropic of men must end by being amused, and Heraclitus must die laughing.

Public opinion is the worst of all opinions.