Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

The day of your birth is one day's advance towards the grave.

For my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent beast pursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have received no offence at all.

We were halves throughout, and to that degree that, methinks, by outliving him I defraud him of his part.

The thing I fear most is fear.

There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.

To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen.

It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.

Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.

Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I. Variants: If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself. If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

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 little of all things, but nothing of everything, after the French manner.

I live from day to day, and content myself with having enough to meet my present and ordinary needs; for the extraordinary, all the provision in the world could not suffice.

He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking.

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same way?

All that is under heaven, says the sage, runs one law and one fortune.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

Whatever can be done another day can be done today.

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

Every rich man is avaricious, in my opinion.

Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies.

All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.

As to fidelity, there is no animal in the world so treacherous as man. Our histories have recorded the violent pursuits that dogs have made after the murderers of their masters.

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray...I am myself the matter of my book. To the Reader

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

I want death to find me planting my cabbages.

My trade and my art is living.

Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.

How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among their friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.

God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give me some evidence of amendment and reformation

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.

Truly man is a marvellously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him.

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.

All the opinions of the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end.

I am angry at the custom of forbidding children to call their father by the name of father, and to enjoin them another, as more full of respect and reverence, as if nature had not sufficiently provided for our authority. We call Almighty God Father, and disdain to have our children call us so. I have reformed this error in my family.-[As did Henry IV of France]-And 'tis also folly and injustice to deprive children, when grown up, of familiarity with their father, and to carry a scornful and austere countenance toward them, thinking by that to keep them in awe and obedience; for it is a very idle farce that, instead of producing the effect designed, renders fathers distasteful, and, which is worse, ridiculous to their own children.

Accustom him to every thing, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.

Things are not so painful and difficult of themselves, but our weakness or cowardice makes them so.

A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or like those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie.

Faith looks to the word and the promise; that is, to the truth. But hope looks to that which the word has promised, to the gift.

The human being, corrupted to the root, can neither desire nor perform anything but evil.

We believe that the very beginning and end of salvation, and the sum of Christianity, consists of faith in Christ, who by His blood alone, and not by any works of ours, has put away sin, and destroyed the power of death.

Never any good came out of female domination. God created Adam master and lord of living creatures, but Eve spoiled it all.

Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen!