"Writing is like paying myself a formal visit…"

"To love is to tire of being alone; it is therefore a cowardice, a betrayal of ourselves. (It is exceedingly important that we not love.)"

"Today I suddenly experienced an absurd but quite valid sensation. I realized, in an intimate lightning flash, that I am no one. No one, absolutely no one."

"…to know how to think with emotions and to feel with intellect…"

"I know nothing and my heart aches"

"Blessed are those who entrust their lives to no one."

"What Hells and Purgatories and Heavens I have inside of me! But who sees me do anything that disagrees with life--me, so calm and peaceful?"

"I am the escaped one, After I was born They locked me up inside me But I left. My soul seeks me, Through hills and valley, I hope my soul Never finds me."

"There is a sort of gloss upon ingenious falsehoods that dazzles the imagination, but which neither belongs to, nor becomes the sober aspect of truth."

"Society is indeed a contract ... it becomes a participant not only between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

"It is generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles and design."

"Society is indeed a contract. ... It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection."

"Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without."

"We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us"

"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe."

"He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one."

"The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary."

"There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief."

"Those who attempt to level, never equalize."

"Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all."

"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites."

"No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him."

"Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear."

"Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear."