I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it.
The births of all things are weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings.
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.
I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.
Every man carries the entire form of human condition.
On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.
We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom.
The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.
He who does not live in some degree for others, hardly lives for himself.
We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.
Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
I want death to find me planting my cabbages.
The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable.
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
If you don’t know how to die, don’t worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don’t bother your head about it.