I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.
It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.
All intelligent thoughts have already been thought what is necessary is only to try to think them again.
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
To rule is easy, to govern difficult.
As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.
Absence from those we love is self from self - a deadly banishment.
Death is a commingling of eternity with time in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.
Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.
Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.
Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.
The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.
Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.
A library implies an act of faith.
People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
Find quotes in french, in german, or in latin. Click on the translation icon.
