It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs. Everything is soothed by oil, and this is the reason why divers send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because it smooths every part which is rough. It is far from easy to determine whether she Nature has proved to him a kind parent or a merciless stepmother. Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she abandon to cries and lamentations. To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.
Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught.
He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep. With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man. The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another. The same substance, it is said, destroys them the moment it enters their throat. It has been observed that the height of a man from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot is equal to the distance between the tips of the middle fingers of the two hands when extended in a straight line.