There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
My trade and art is to live.
The thing I fear most is fear.
I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
Marriage is like a cage one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.