In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

Bad men live to eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink in order to live.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

By all means marry; if you get a good wife you'll become happy; if you get a bad one you'll become a philosopher.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.