That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.

We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!

Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.

Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.

It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.

The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.

What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.

There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.

An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.

Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.