The God to whom depth in philosophy bring back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them

The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it

Well-bred instinct meets reason halfway

The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool

Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are

The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity

History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there

A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness; happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one's life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepte

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experience.