If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.

On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

Whether we are running our home or studying or hunting or following any other sport, we should go to the very boundaries of pleasure but take good care not to be involved beyond the point...

Debemos reservarnos una trastienda del todo nuestra, del todo libre, donde fijar nuestra verdadera libertad y nuestro principal retiro y soledad. En ella debemos mantener nuestra habitual conversación con nosotros mismos, y tan privada que...

We need but little learning to live happily.

Nul vent ne faict pour celuy qui n’a point de port destiné

To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it.

I know not what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my whole will, carried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that having seized his whole will, brought it back with equal...

Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature’s first laws, I assure you I should very gladly have portrayed myself here entire and wholly...

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

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

Though the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us we must not trouble the gods with our affairs because they take no heed of our angers and disputes, we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies...

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act...

A man is not hurt so much by what happens, as by his opinion of what happens.

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth.

Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors...

As for dying we can only assay that once; we are all apprentices when it comes to that

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.

All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.

Why do people respect the package rather than the man?

If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men.

Writing does not cause misery, it is born of misery.

Handling and use by able minds give value to a language, not so much by innovating as by filling it out with more vigorous and varied services, by stretching and bending it.

I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.

From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me...

The thing I fear most is fear.

Nichts wird so fest geglaubt wie das, was wir am wenigsten wissen.

Learned we may be with another man’s learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.

Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.

We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with...

There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.

The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to questions of grammar.

Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy?How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?

Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.

There is no passion so much transports thesincerity of judgement as doth anger

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.

[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.