Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.
If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
All that philosophy can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes.
Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.
Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart?
Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.