Passions are the winds that swell the sails of the ship. It is true, they sometimes sink her, but without them she could not sail at all. The bile makes us sick and choleric; but without the bile we could not live. Everything in this world is dangerous, and yet everything in it is necessary.
We should introduce into our existence all imaginable modes, and open every door of the minds to all kinds of knowledge, and all sorts of feelings. So long as it does not all go in pell-mell, there is room enough for all.
It is the part of a man like you [Vauvenargues] to have preferences, but no exclusions.
The unwise value every word in an author of repute.
Opinion governs the world, and philosophers in the long run govern opinion.
We enjoin mankind to conquer their passions. Make the experiment of only depriving a man, in the habit of taking it, of his pinch of snuff.
Do we not nearly all resemble the aged General of ninety years, who, seeing some young fellows larking with the girls, said to them angrily: “Gentlemen, is that the example which I give you?”
Passions are diseases. To cure a man of a criminal intention, we should give him not counsel, but a dose of physic.
Women are like windmills, fixed while they revolve.
I fear lest marriage may not rather be one of the seven deadly sins than one of the seven sacraments.