We live not according to reason, but according to fashion.

There in no one more unfortunate than the man who has never been unfortunate. for it has never been in his power to try himself.

No one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense soon lapses into the true character.

The man who has learned to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred fillets upon his brow; and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

There is nothing that we can properly call our own but our time, and yet everybody fools us out of it who has a mind to do it. If a man borrows a paltry sum of money, there must needs be bonds and securities, and every common civility is presently charged upon account. But he who has my time thinks he owes me nothing for it, though it be a debt that gratitude itself can never repay.

There has never been any great genius without a spice of madness.