Quote collection
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"We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies; but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils?"
"There is more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things, and more books upon books than upon any other subject; we do nothing but comment upon one another. Every place swarms with commentaries; of authors there is great scarcity."
"We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others."
"To philosophize is to doubt."
"A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection."
"I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private."
"Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet and gentle than prudent and just."
"I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention."
"A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them."
"Custom is a second nature, and no less powerful."
"How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and betray us to those around!"
"Socrates ... brought human wisdom back down from heaven, where she was wasting her time, and restored her to man.... It is impossible to go back further and lower. He did a great favor to human nature by showing how much it can do by itself."
"Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians."
"There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened."
"As for me, then, I love life and cultivate it just as God has been pleased to grant it to us."
"The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power."
"Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the rest--beginning, middle, and end--isnothing but dreams and smoke."
"Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance."
"To die is not to play a part in society; it is the act of a single person. Let us live and laugh among our friends; let us die and sulk among strangers."
"Wine is the benevolent god, who gives back gaiety to men and restores youth to the old."