The articulate, trained voice is more distracting than mere noise.

It is the practice of the multitude to bark at eminent men, as little dogs do at strangers.

The most miserable mortals are they that deliver themselves up to their palates, or to their lusts; the pleasure is short, and turns presently nauseous, and the end of it is either shame or repentance.

Whatever has overstepped its due bounds is always in a state of instability.

Freedom is not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.

We deliberate about the parcels of life, but not about life itself, and so we arrive all unawares at its different epochs, and have the trouble of beginning all again. And so finally it is that we do not walk as men confidently towards death, but let death come suddenly upon us.

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.