The ordinary mind always conforms to the prevailing opinion and the prevailing fashion.

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  The first step of wisdom is to accuse everything; the last, to make peace with everything.

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  A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, an apostle is hardly likely to look out.

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  The people who never have any time do the least.

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  He has written eight volumes. He would surely have done better to plant eight trees or beget eight children.

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  Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired.

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  The man who listens to Reason is lost: Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her.

All aphorisms