It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

In these divine pleasures permitted to me of walks in the June night under moon and stars, I can put my life as a fact before me and stand aloof from its honor and shame.

How many attractions for us have our passing fellows in the streets, both male and female, which our ethics forbid us to express, which yet infuse so much pleasure into life. A lovely child, a handsome youth, a beautiful girl, a heroic man, a maternal woman, a venerable old man, charm us, though strangers, and we cannot say so, or look at them but for a moment.

I find it more credible, since it is anterior information, that one man should know heaven, as the Chinese say, than that so many men should know the world.

Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely thatwhich all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt.

I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of men.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.