Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion.
To lead a blameless life you must curb your passions, and whatever misfortune may befall you cannot be ascribed by anyone to want of good luck, or attributed to fate; these words are devoid of sense, and all fault will rightly fall on your own head.
The man who seeks to educate himself must first read and then travel in order to correct what he has learned.
Praise the beautiful for their intelligence and the intelligent for their beauty.
Desires are but pain and torment, and enjoyment is sweet because it delivers us from them.
I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding.
I know that I have lived because I have felt, and, feeling giving me the knowledge of my existence.
If you want to make people laugh, your face must remain serious.
From that moment our love became sad, and sadness is a disease which gives the death-blow to affection.
I have often met with happiness after some imprudent step which ought to have brought ruin upon me, and although passing a vote of censure upon myself I would thank God for his mercy.
The story she had told me was possible, but it was not believable.
You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools.
I always made my food congenial to my constitution, and my health was always excellent.
Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved.
Hope is nothing but a deceitful flatterer accepted by reason only because it is often in need of palliatives.
I have always had such sincere love for truth, that I have often begun by telling stories for the purpose of getting truth to enter the heads of those who could not appreciate its charms.
My success and my misfortunes, the bright and the dark days I have gone through, everything has proved to me that in this world, either physical or moral, good comes out of evil just as well as evil comes out of good.
Should I perchance still feel after my death, I would no longer have any doubt, but I would most certainly give the lie to anyone asserting before me that I was dead.
For my future I have no concern, and as a true philosopher, I never would have any, for I know not what it may be: as a Christian, on the other hand, faith must believe without discussion, and the stronger it is, the more it keeps silent.
My errors will point to thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it.