My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
Michel de Montaigne
A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
My trade and art is to live.
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
One may be humble out of pride.
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.
In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
The thing I fear most is fear.
