"We do not wish ardently for what..." - Quote by Francois De La Rochefoucauld

“Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity.”

“Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.”

“If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere.”

“Without desire there is stillness, and the world settles by itself.”

“Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.”

“Some men have sighed over the abduction of their wives, but many more have sighed because no one wanted to abduct theirs.”

“When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.”

“Hast thou reason? I have. Why then dost not thou use it? For if this does its own work, what else dost thou wish?”

“Education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the best of our elders has agreed to be truly right.”