Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
How many quarrels, and how important, has the doubt as to the meaning of this syllable "Hoc" produced for the world!
I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.
No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.
A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists.
How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and betray us to those around!
The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.
I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me.
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.
There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)
Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.
Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind?
All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it.
We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions; we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.
Make use of life while you have it. Whether you have lived enough depends upon yourself, not on the number of your years.
I love a gay and sociable wisdom, and shun harshness and austerity in behaviour, holding every surly countenance suspect.
It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is.
Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.
Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices.
Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.
He was doubtless an understanding Fellow that said, there was no happy Marriage but betwixt a blind Wife and a deaf Husband.
It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.
..a man may live long, yet live very little. Satisfaction in life depends not on the number of your years, but on your will.
The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.
Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.
Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.
I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that tied them together.
We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far.
The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.
Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.
Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.
For there is no air that men so greedily draw in, that diffuses itself so soon, and that penetrates so deep as that of license.
I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.
It is equally pointless to weep because we won't be alive a hundred years from now as that we were not here a hundred years ago.
The desire for riches is more sharpened by their use than by their need. Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit.
We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.
And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?
Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener. The latter must prepare to receive it according to the motion it takes.
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees?
When a Roman was returning from a trip, he used to send someone ahead to let his wife know, so as not to surprise her in the act.
I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.
Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.
I honor most those to whom I show least honor; and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I forget the proper steps of ceremony.