The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.
When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?
Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.
I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man’s estate.
Les naturels sanguinaires à l’endroit des bestes, tesmoignent une propension naturelle à la cruauté.
Learned we may be with another man’s learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.
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 there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to questions of grammar.
If you know not how to die, never trouble yourself; Nature will in a moment fully and sufficiently instruct you; she will exactly do that business for you; take you no care for it.
It is an ill wind that does not blow some good. For example, it is well to be born in a decadent age; for one may obtain a reputation for virtue at a bargain price.
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
We cannot be held to promises beyond our power or our means. That is why – since nothing is really in our power but our will – it is on the will that all the rules and duties of Man are based and established.
There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.