Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the State.

If you act, you show character; if you sit still, you show it; if you sleep you show it.

We fill the hands and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums and horses, withdrawing their eyes from the plain face and... Nature, the sun and moon, the animals, the water and stones, which should be their toys.

Do not you see that every misfortune is misconduct; that every honour is desert; that every effort is an insolence of your own?...You carry your fortune in your own hand.

A man of no conversation should smoke.

The connection between our knowledge and the abyss of being is still real, and the explication must be not less magnificent.

When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy, and sometimes asquint.