“I speak to the paper, as I speak to the first person I meet.”

“The continuous work of our life is to build death.”

“The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.”

“Writing does not cause misery, it is born of misery.”

“And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain.

“Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.”

“Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.”

“Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.”

I prefer the first humor; not because it is pleasanter to laugh than to weep, but because it is more disdainful, and condemns us more than the other; and it seems to me that we can never be despised as much as we deserve. Pity and commiseration are mingled with some esteem for the thing we pity; the things we laugh at we consider worthless. I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as vanity, nor as much malice as stupidity. We are not so full of evil as of inanity; we are not as wretched as we are worthless.

“Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, finding the condition of man vain and ridiculous, never went out in public but with a mocking and laughing face; whereas Heraclitus, having pity and compassion on this same condition of ours, wore a face perpetually sad, and eyes filled with tears.

“The soul in which philosophy dwells should by its health make even the body healthy. It should make its tranquillity and gladness shine out from within; should form in its own mold the outward demeanor, and consequently arm it with a graceful pride, an active and joyous bearing, and a contented and good-natured countenance. The surest sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness.”

“The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.”

“Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.”

“Experience has further taught me this, that we ruin ourselves by impatience.”

“The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.”

“One must be a little foolish if one does not want to be even more stupid.”

“Let every foot have its own shoe.”

“There is no more expensive thing than a free gift.”

“a good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.”

“The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose.”

“Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.”

“To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.”

“There are no truths, only moments of claryty passing for answers.”

“If I am pressed to say why I loved him, I feel it can only be explained by replying: 'Because it was he; because it was me.”