Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.

Be assured that, although men of eminent genius have been guilty of all other vices, none worthy of more than a secondary name has ever been a gamester. Either an excess of avarice or a deficiency of what, in physics, is called excitability, is the cause of it; neither of which can exist in the same bosom with genius, with patriotism, or with virtue.

Solitude is the audience-chamber of God.

Absurdities are great or small in proportion to custom or insuetude.

Great men always pay deference to greater.

The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.