Desire is the essence of a man.

Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

No one doubts but that we imagine time from the very fact that we imagine other bodies to be moved slower or faster or equally fast. We are accustomed to determine duration by the aid of some measure of motion.

Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things. For if a man says that the lines which are drawn from the centre of the circle to the circumference are not equal, he understands by the circle, at all events for the time, something else than mathematicians understand by it.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

Sadness diminishes a man's powers