The success of many books is due to the affinity between the mediocrity of the author's ideas and those of the public.

Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.

Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.

There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.

Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.

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

Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones.