I hate books; they teach us only to talk about what we do not know.
There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good.
The happiest is he who suffers the least pain; the most miserable, he who enjoys the least pleasure.
I may not amount to much, but at least I am unique.
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.
To write a good love letter you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.
Little privations are easily endured when the heart is better treated than the body.
Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape a fire is guilty of suicide?
It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life.
I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted...without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of an object, was always suppressed. ...The impossibility of attaining the real persons precipitated me into the land of chimeras; and seeing nothing that existed worthy of my exalted feelings, I fostered them in an ideal world which my creative imagination soon peopled with beings after my own heart.
Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
Being wealthy isn't just a question of having lots of money. It's a question of what we want. Wealth isn't an absolute, it's relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can't afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.
So finally we tumble into the abyss, we ask God why he has made us so feeble. But, in spite of ourselves, He replies through our consciences: 'I have made you too feeble to climb out of the pit, because i made you strong enough not to fall in.
I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere plaything of other people's thoughts.
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.
Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.
Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.
