My dear young lady, when you are in love, and jealous, and have been flogged by the Inquisition, there's no knowing what you may do.

Only your friends steal your books.

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

Why should you think it so strange that in some countries there are monkeys which insinuates themselves into the good graces of the ladies; they are a fourth part human, as I am a fourth part Spaniard.

Indolence is sweet, and its consequence bitter.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.