The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
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There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
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There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
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Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
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He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
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Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.
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Bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even s...
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I was not long since in a company where I was not who of my fraternity brought news of a kind of pills, by true account, composed of a hundred and odd several ingredients; whereat we laughed very heartily, and made ourselves good sport; for what rock so hard were able to resist the shock or withstand the force of so thick and numerous a battery?
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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.
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There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.
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Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.
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In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection, otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
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The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some people have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it...
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No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
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The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
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We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones...
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The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
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It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.
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He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.
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Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
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Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
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Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.
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Few men have been admired of their familiars.
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If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.
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The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
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The value of life lies not in the length of days but in the use you make of them; he has lived for a long time who has little lived.
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My trade and my art is living. He who forbids me to speak about it according to my sense, experience, and practice, let him order the architec...
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A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
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We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
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I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
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