So it follows that those who have reason have freedom to will or not to will, although this freedom is not equal in all of them. [...] human souls are more free when they persevere in the contemplation of the mind of God, less free when they descend to the corporeal, and even less free when they are entirely imprisoned in earthly flesh and blood.

Every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home.

I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.

...Whose souls, albeit in a cloudy memory, yet seek back their good, but, like drunk men, know not the road home.

Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.

For in every ill-turn of fortune the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy

Love has three kinds of origin, namely: suffering, friendship and love. A human love has a corporal and intellectual origin.