All religions are pieced together out of elements which seem so at odds with reason that any intelligence laughs at them.

Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.

Those who have nothing else to recommend them to the respect of others but only their blood, cry it up at a great rate, and have their mouth perpetually full of it. They swell and vapor, and you are sure to hear of their families and relations every third word.

[Envy not for...] Whatever difference there may appear to be in men's fortunes, there is still a certain compensation of good and ill in all, that makes them equal.

Great towns are but a large sort of prison to the soul; like cages to birds, or pounds to beasts.

Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite, are yet so contrived by nature as to be constant companions; and it is a fact that the same motions and muscles of the face are employed both in laughing and crying.

Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite are contrived to be constant companions.