All religions are pieced together out of elements which seem so at odds with reason that any intelligence laughs at them..

Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itse….

Those who have nothing else to recommend them to the respect of others but only their blood, cry it up at a great rate, and have their mouth perpetua….

Wounds and hardships provoke our courage, and when our fortunes are at the lowest, our wits and minds are commonly at the best..

It is certainly much easier wholly to decline a passion than to keep it within just bounds and measures; and that which few can moderate almost anybo….

Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite, are yet so contrived by nature as to be constant companions; and it is a fact that the same motions and ….

The most excellent and divine counsel, the best and most profitable advertisement of all others, but the least practised, is to study and learn how t….

[Envy not for...] Whatever difference there may appear to be in men's fortunes, there is still a certain compensation of good and ill in all, that ma….

Great towns are but a large sort of prison to the soul; like cages to birds, or pounds to beasts..

The true science and study of mankind is man..

He who receives a benefit should never forget it; he who bestows should never remember it..

He that boasts of his ancestors confesses that he has no virtue of his own. No person ever lived for our honor; nor ought that to be reputed ours, wh….

Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite are contrived to be constant companions..

God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself..

Mutability is the badge of infirmity. It is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike. Now he is for marrying; and….

The advice of friends must be received with a judicious reserve; we must not give ourselves up to it and follow it blindly, whether right or wrong..

To owe an obligation to a worthy friend is a happiness, and can be no disparagement..

The shortest follies are the best..

The shortest follies are the best. [Fr., Les plus courtes folies sont les meilleures.].

Wise men mingle mirth with their cares, as a help either to forget or overcome them; but to resort to intoxication for the ease of one's mind is to c….

Gratitude is a virtue disposing the mind to an inward sense and an outward acknowledgment of a benefit received, together with a readiness to return ….