The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.

Life is a continued struggle to be what we are not, and to do what we cannot.

Learning is its own exceeding great reward.

Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.

Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction: interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.

To great evils we submit; we resent little provocations.

Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.

The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.

Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.

Those who have had none of the cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have been obliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the next to vary the prospect before them.