“If life is a punishment, one should wish for an end; if life is a test, one should wish it to be short.”

“There is never but one pleasant side to this human life. Like the globe on which we turn, our own rapid rotation is but one day, and a part of this day cannot receive light, so that the other part will not be delivered into darkness.”

“Death, my son, is a good thing for all men; it is the night for this worried day that we call life. It is in the sleep of death that finds rest for eternity the sickness, pain, desperation, and the fears that agitate, without end, we unhappy living souls.”

“La vie de l'homme, avec tous ses projets, s'élève comme une petite tour dont la mort est le couronnement.”

“La diète des aliments nous rend la santé du corps, et celle des hommes la tranquillité de l'âme. ”

“When one wishes to play the wit, he sometimes wander a little from the truth.”

“If, for example, I had just as much love as you had virtue (and that is surely saying a lot) it is not astonishing that one should end at the same time as the other. It is not my fault.”