“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.”

“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.”

“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.

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.

“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.”

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

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

“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.

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

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

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

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

“Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments.”

“We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.”

“My business is only to keep myself in motion, whilst motion pleases me; I only walk for the walk's sake.”

“It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her.”

“If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.”

“My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.”

“I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.”

“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known.”

“Women are not entirely wrong when they reject the moral rules proclaimed in society, since it is we men alone who have made them.”

“All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.”

“We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.”

“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.”

“It is a small soul, buried beneath the weight of affairs, that does not know how to get clean away from them, that cannot put them aside and pick them up again.”

“We should tend our freedom wisely.”

“There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance”

“How many things were articles of faith to us yesterday that are fables to us today?”

“Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.”

“Whoever will be cured of ignorance, let him confess it.”

“We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.”

“The reverse side of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits.”

“The beautiful souls are they that are unniversal, open, and ready for all things.”

“Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.”

“He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear.”

“Life should be an aim unto itself, a purpose unto itself.”

“We must learn to suffer whatever we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of dischords as well as different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only some of them, what could he sing? He has got to know how to use all of them and blend them together. So too must we with good and ill, which are of one substance with our life.”

“It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account.”

“When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me rather than I with her?”

“~The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~”

“No spirited mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength; it has impulses beyond its power of achievement.”

“A man is not hurt so much by what happens, as by his opinion of what happens.”

“Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.”

“No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”

“Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.”

“It is a dangerous and fateful presumption, besides the absurd temerity that it implies, to disdain what we do not comprehend. For after you have established, according to your fine undertstanding, the limits of truth and falsehood, and it turns out that you must necessarily believe things even stranger than those you deny, you are obliged from then on to abandon these limits.”

“Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?”

“Better to be tentative than to be recklessly sure- to be an apprentice at sixty, than to present oneself as a doctor at ten.”

“In our time the most warlike nations are the most rude and ignorant.”

“No one should be subjected to force over things which belonged to him.”