Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.

Six well-spent years will pay off all the evil you have committed.

The French, for example, are a contemptible nation.

Do not base your life on the judgments of others; first, because they are as likely to be mistaken as you are, and further, because you cannot know that they are telling you their true thoughts.

Posterity is always just.

It is not the criminal things which are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and shameful.

It has always pleased me to read while eating if I have no companion; it gives me the society I lack. I devour alternately a page and a mouthful; it is as though my book were dining with me.

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.