All cruelty springs from weakness.

It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and - even more surprising - it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.

You find in some a sort of graceless modesty, that makes them ashamed to requite an obligation.

Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insuating and insidious something that elicits secrets from us just like love or liquor.

As many servants so many enemies.

Solitude and company may be allowed to take their turns: the one creates in us the love of mankind, the other that of ourselves; solitude relieves us when we are sick of company, and conversation when we are weary of being alone, so that the one cures the other. There is no man so miserable as he that is at a loss how to use his time

It is pleasant at times to play the madman.