The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.
Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One.
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.