We must cultivate our own garden.

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.

If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.

He who is involved in ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for reality, and his own imagination for prophesy, is a fanatical novice of great hope and promise, and will soon advance to the higher stage and kill men for the love of God.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.

Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed.