What one knows best is ... what one has learned not from books but as a result of books, through the reflections to which they have given rise.

Society is composed of two great classes, those that have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.

Thought consoles us for all, and heals all. If at times it does you ill, ask it for the remedy for that ill and it will give it to you.

Love, a pleasant folly; ambition, a serious stupidity.

Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.

Hope is but a charlatan that ceases not to deceive us. For myself happiness only began when I had lost it.

Where violence reigns, reason is weak.