The happier the moment the shorter.
In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.
True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read.
The best kind of wine is that which is most pleasant to him who drinks it.
Human nature is fond of novelty.
We ought to be guarded against every appearance of envy, as a passion that always implies inferiority wherever it resides.
The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another.
Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.
As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into licentiousness.
Chance is a second master.
As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat.
Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.
Nature makes us buy her presents at the price of so many sufferings that it is doubtful whether she deserves most the name of parent or stepmother.
Nothing which we can imagine about Nature is incredible.
No mortal man, moreover is wise at all moments.
All men possess in their bodies a poison which acts upon serpents; and the human saliva, it is said, makes them take to flight, as though they had been touched with boiling water. The same substance, it is said, destroys them the moment it enters their throat.
Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep.
True happiness consists in being considered deserving of it.
God has no power over the past except to cover it with oblivion.
When collapse is imminent, the little rodents flee.