Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.

I would have a man generous to his country, his neighbors, his kindred, his friends, and most of all his poor friends. Not like some who are most lavish with those who are able to give most of them.

In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

Man naturally yearns for novelty.

It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it.

Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep.