“My trade and art is to live.”
“Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.”
“The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.”
“The thing I fear most is fear.”
“The world is but a perpetual see-saw.”
“There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.”
“There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.”
“Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.”
“Few men have been admired of their familiars.”
“Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.”
“How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.”
“It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.”
“The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.”
“The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.”
“The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.”
“There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.”
“Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.”
“Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.”
“We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.”
“No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.”
“I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it.”
“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”
“My art and profession is to live.”
“Whoever will be cured of ignorance, let him confess it.”
“I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.”