But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.

The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.

There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.

Reason teaches us that what is good is good for something, and that what is good for nothing is not good at all.

The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.

Another occupation might have been better.

Eclecticism – every truth is so true that any truth must be false.

Few people would not be the worse for complete sincerity.

Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived. It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.

It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.